Lisbon, July 11, 2025 (Agência Lusa) - TAP has filed for insolvency for its former holding company TAP SGPS, now called SIAVILO, Infrastructure Minister Miguel Pinto Luz announced on Thursday.
The decision comes amid a dispute with Brazilian airline Azul, and the government has mandated TAP’s management to negotiate a solution with the South American carrier.
The infrastructure minister prefers to withhold further details on the matter, stressing that TAP is in dialogue with Azul and “it will be decided in court”. He added that the process would not affect the reprivatisation of TAP, which took its first step on Thursday with the cabinet approving the decree-law, as future interested parties will be aware of the situation.
Analysts widely anticipated the insolvency filing by the former TAP SGPS, given that SIAVILO holds an asset value close to zero, records a negative net worth exceeding €1 billion and saw its governing bodies resign in recent months, as ECO reported. As a creditor of the holding company, TAP has thus initiated the insolvency proceedings.
SIAVILO has not met its obligations on a bond loan that Azul took out in 2016. On that date, the Brazilian company subscribed to a €90 million bond loan to TAP to help the Portuguese company’s liquidity, with accumulated interest that is expected to raise the amount to around €180 million next year, according to figures recently provided to Lusa by Azul’s Institutional and Corporate Vice President, Fábio Campos.
Although TAP SGPS has fully divested its stake in TAP SA (the operating company that owns the airline), the latter’s assets serve as collateral for the loan taken out with Azul. This situation has contributed to the worsening of the dispute between the two companies.
The conflict between the two companies has continued since the summer of 2024, and attempts at out-of-court settlement are still progressing. In November, TAP filed a lawsuit in Portugal.
Azul, in turn, filed for bankruptcy protection in the US under Chapter 11 on 28 May, providing for a financial restructuring that includes $1.6 billion in financing and a reduction of more than $2 billion in debt.
Azul, founded by David Neeleman, a former TAP shareholder, argues that the debt should be taken into account in the Portuguese airline’s reprivatisation process. “We believe that this debt will have to be addressed before any progress can be made on privatisation,” said Fábio Campos in the same interview with Lusa.
Azul’s restructuring plan, which has the support of strategic partners such as United Airlines, American Airlines and the leasing company AerCap, should finish by early 2026.
On Thursday, the government took the first step towards selling TAP, which will once again have private shareholders after the government moved to nationalise it in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic on air transport.
The cabinet approved a decree-law that provides for the sale of up to 49.9% of the airline’s capital through a direct sale model, reserving up to 5% for employees, as provided for in the privatisation law.
SCR/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
