The Swedish Government has decided to sell its 21.4% share in Scandinavia’s long-serving airline after pumping in millions of dollars over the last decade.

 

Finance Minister Peter Norman (shown below) has confirmed this in a brief interview with the country’s business newspaper Dagens Industrisays.

 

He told the newspaper yesterday that the Swedish Government had tried to sell before, but there were no takers and now it is time to try again. He also indicated that the government would actively seek out potential buyers.

 

SAS has been financially challenged for many years now and it came close to bankruptcy this month. While Sweden holds a 21.4% share in the airline, Norway and Denmark also hold 14.3% shares each.

 

 

In total, all three countries have invested over €1.1bn over the last decade and each government has made it very clear that they will not be investing any more.

 

SAS has now obtained the agreement it needs from eight unions to move ahead with its 4Excellence NG plan which involves approximately SEK3bn ($420,000) of annual improvements, including cost reductions and organizational restructuring of approximately the same amount of increased liquidity from asset sales.