ISLAMABAD: The chairman of the Arif Habib Group, a prominent Pakistani conglomerate with diversified interests across various sectors, said on Thursday the consortium had submitted its bid to acquire a stake in Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the country’s loss-making national flag carrier.
Expressions of interest are due today, Thursday, for an up to 100 percent stake in PIA as the government moves forward with a long-delayed privatization plan aimed at easing pressure on its strained public finances.
The sale of PIA will be the first major privatization for around two decades. Turning around loss-making state-owned enterprises is a condition of an ongoing $7 billion bailout by the International Monetary Fund.
The government tried unsuccessfully to last year offload a stake in PIA, which is a major burden on its budget, but the sale was aborted because of the poor state of the airline and the conditions attached to any purchase.
“We have submitted our bid for acquiring the PIA stake,” Arib Habib, the chairman of Arif Habib Group, told Arab News.
