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Berlusconi sees Italian Alitalia offer in month
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Silvio Berlusconi, Italy´s next prime minister, reiterated his belief late on Tuesday that a group of Italian businesses would come forward in the coming weeks to buy ailing airline Alitalia .
Prime minister-elect after a winning a general election on Sunday and Monday, Berlusconi told a TV talk show that a group which included an Italian air transport company would make an offer within a month.
"Many businesses, including big ones, have come forward to guarantee the necessary capital for a completely Italian team which, once it knows the accounts of Alitalia, will be able to present a bid," he said via telephone to Porta a Porta, a chat show on state TV RAI1.
"I think there is a solution, I won´t say an easy one, but a solution that can be found quite soon, in not more than a month from now," he said.
Berlusconi made the future of the Italian flag carrier a key point of his election campaign.
Romano Prodi´s outgoing centre-left government had agreed to sell the state´s 49.9 percent stake to Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM, a move opposed by those who, like Berlusconi, insisted the airline must remain under Italian control.
World leader Air France-KLM backed out of its bid after stormy talks with Alitalia unions shortly before the election The outgoing government, which remains in a caretaker capacity for the next couple of weeks, had been working to revive it.
At his first public appearance since beating centre-left political rival Walter Veltroni, in a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, Berlusconi said Alitalia was one of two priorities for his new government, the other being cleaning up a garbage crisis in the southern city of Naples.
When asked on Porta a Porta for details of the consortium, he remained vague.
"In this team of enterprises there is a company that has specific know-how in air transport, an Italian company. The group has the guarantee of help from an important banking group of international standing," he said, without naming names.
Bank Intesa Sanpaolo had previously backed a bid by small Italian airline Air One.
Asked if German carrier Lufthansa, often touted as an alternative bidder, might be part of the consortium, Berlusconi declined to comment but repeated that the group would ensure control of Alitalia would remain in Italian hands.
Critics attacked Berlusconi´s comments during the election campaign as mere rhetoric that risked pushing the carrier closer to bankruptcy, and the outgoing government has maintained that the only alternative to the Franco-Dutch buyer is some sort of emergency administration.
Prodi´s office released a statement after Berlusconi´s news conference on Tuesday which said it would seek an urgent meeting with him or one of his aides, in the light of his comments.
"The government feels it is indispensable that the situation is dealt with in depth in an urgent meeting with a representative of the leader of the coalition that won the election," it said.
Alitalia, whose shares closed up 18 percent at 0.59 euros on Tuesday, has a market value of under 700 million euros and about 1.37 billion euros of debt.
Alitalia´s ready cash is shrinking by about 3 million euros a day and now has funds left only for the immediate future -- a question of weeks or at most a couple of months, observers say.
Berlusconi declined to answer reporters´ questions on whether he would consider reopening talks with Air France-KLM, saying he would wait until he had the reins of power.
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