The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF), Greece’s body responsible for the state assets privatisation, has announced the completion of the unsealing procedure of the binding financial offers for the sale of a 67% shareholding in the port of Thessaloniki, writes Thessaloniki Port Authority today. The three final bids for the 40-year concession were submitted on 24 March 2017 and unsealed last Friday.

Now HRADF has requested improved financial offers from the bidders. Once the new bids are submitted and assessed at a subsequent HRADF Board meeting, the winner of the tender will be announced, which is expected in mid-May.

As we wrote earlier, three investors participate in the tender to operate Greek second-largest port: Philippines-based International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), Dubai-based DP World and a consortium comprising German private equity firm Deutsche Invest Equity Partners GmbH, Terminal Link (a subsidiary of CMA CGM) and Belterra Investments LTD (a company of Russian-Greek investor Ivan Savvidi).

According to Constantinos Mellios, Chairman of Thessaloniki Port Authority, the winner of the tender will take over the port’s operations since autumn 2017.

The container throughput of Thessaloniki in January-February 2017 rose by 4.13% y-o-y, up to 60,985 TEU. Total tonnage grew by 6.13%, up to 1.04 mln tons in the same period.