THE CABINET has ordered that a second round be held in a controversial privatization tender for Slovakia's largest airports, instead of confirming the victor of the first tender, the TwoOne consortium.
TwoOne, consisting of the Slovak capital group Penta, Vienna Airport and Austria's Raiffeisen Zentralbank, will now face off against a consortium led by the Spanish Abertis Infraestructuras, the British TBI, and another Slovak capital group, J&T, for 66 percent stakes in the Bratislava and Košice airports.
The ruling parties decided yesterday that the two closest bidders should get one more chance to submit a clearly superior bid. The only criterion in this round will be price, the Pravda daily wrote.
"The difference in the [original] offers of the first two consortia was just 2.5 points. This is such a small difference that we decided to introduce a supplementary criterion that should clarify the result," Transport Minister Pavol Prokopovič said.
The new offers are due by noon next Friday.
Compiled by Martina Jurinová from press reports
TheSlovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the informationpresented in its Flash News postings.
