Serbian Government to recapitalise and replace Jat Airways
Jat Airways announced the Serbian Government plans to split the carrier into profit and loss-making components, under which a new strategic investor would take over the profitable components to form a new national carrier to replace Jat Airways (Reuters/Beta, 17-Apr-2010). The government plans to launch a recapitalisation tender for the new company. Bidders will be required to submit a detailed investment plan for the new carrier and for cooperation with the Jat Airways, JAT Tehnika Maintenance Company and Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. Firstly, a tender to hire a privatisation advisor will be launched. The carrier also announced plans to sell its headquarters in Belgrade to Telekom Srbije for EUR10.3 million, with the funds to be used to repay a EUR10 million government loan from 2009. Some employees would be transferred to the new company, while in other cases, assets will be used for severance packages for redundancies. Jat Airways informed its operations will continue as normal.