‘No talks’ on selling SAA stake

South African Airways has stated categorically that it has not yet held talks with any foreign airline with a view to selling a stake in the stateowned company.

A report in City Press newspaper quoted the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mahash Alhameli, saying that his government was considering investing in SA’s state-owned companies, in particular in SAA. The UAE has two state-owned airlines, Emirates and Etihad.

In a statement issued on Monday, SAA said it had recently held many talks with airlines with which it had code-sharing agreements, as well as potential commercial partners, but the discussions had been “purely about commercial agreements such as interline, codeshare, cargo as well as possibilities of these airlines taking some of our excess flight deck and cabin crew staff”.

“We have not discussed any possibility of them investing in SAA as part of strategic equity partner process,” it said.

SAA CEO Vuyani Jarana said earlier in July that the airline was urgently looking for a buyer of a stake in the company as a way to deal with its liquidity and solvency problems.

In a statement on Monday, Emirates confirmed it had not engaged in any talks with SAA. Etihad, which has been in a process of exiting from various partnership agreements with other airlines and is therefore a less likely suitor for SAA, could not be reached for comment.

SAA has in the past engaged with Emirates over an equity partnership arrangement. In 2015, a R2bn equity deal between Emirates and SAA was scuppered when then SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni intervened, ordering then acting CE Nico Bezuidenhout to return home from Paris immediately and not sign the deal.

SAA needs to raise R21.7bn over the next three years to make it profitable, according to its turnaround plan. The R21.7bn would be a mixture of equity — either from the government or a new investor — and debt.