ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece is set to meet its 2013 revenue target from asset sales, after lowering it twice, but could struggle to relaunch a bid to sell natural gas firm DEPA, the country’s privatization agency chief said on Monday.
Athens launched a privatization program in 2010 to boost revenues as part of its international bailout but has faced a number of setbacks.
It has cut its 2013 revenue target twice this year to 1.3 billion euros ($1.78 billion), half the amount initially targeted, mainly because it did not receive any binding bids for DEPA.
“We will meet the 1.3 (billion euro) target,” Constantinos Maniatopoulos, who became head of the privatization agency two months ago, told Reuters in an interview.
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“But whether the 1.3 (billion) will finally end up to be 1.2 (billion) isn’t essentially that important since we have already completed several deals and some of the money could be cashed in next year.”
Maniatopoulos is the agency’s fourth chief in two years after his predecessor was forced out over a holiday flight scandal.
Greece is aiming at total privatization proceeds of about 24 billion euros by 2020 to cut its debt, which is seen exceeding 175 percent of GDP this year, and to kick-start its austerity-hit economy as part of its 240-billion euro international bailout.
Athens’s major asset sales so far have been a 560-million euro video lotto license to betting monopoly OPAP and a controlling stake in the firm for 652 million euros this year. It has raised a total of 960 million euros since the start of 2013 and plans to cash in about 260 million from real estate sales by the end of the year.
But the program suffered a major setback when the sale of DEPA floundered in June after Russia’s Gazprom , the world’s top gas producer and the frontrunner to buy it, withdrew at the final stage.
Greece wants to relaunch the tender next year but Maniatopoulos said it won’t be an easy task.
“Russia has said it would be interested in any new tender. Let’s see. But with just one bidder it’s difficult to call a new tender,” Maniatopoulos, a former EU Commission director general for energy, said.
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Athens’ failure to meet its privatization revenue goals has been a major headache for the government and its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders, putting fiscal targets in its bailout program at risk.
Maniatopoulos, 71, cited bureaucratic snags and poor investor sentiment for delays in the scheme but said the agency was improving and better conditions for asset sales would help the country meet its 2014 revenue targets.
“There is an adverse climate,” Maniatopoulos said.
“Some of the projects will move faster and others will move slower. But if we are flexible in substituting some targets with others, I believe that our program will be on track.”
Leasing out Athens’ old airport Hellenikon, and selling railway operator Trainose and rolling stock operating company ROSCO, would help the country cash in 3.56 billion euros from privatizations next year, he said, as assumed in the government’s 2014 budget passed by parliament earlier this month.
Four investors, including the Gulf state of Qatar, have qualified for the final stage for Hellenikon. Maniatopoulos confirmed Greek media reports that Qatar had pulled out but said the Middle East state could still submit a final bid along with other investors early next year.
“They have been shortlisted and it’s up to them whether they will be taking part or not,” he said. “They would be welcome if they decide to come at the last moment.”
Maniatopoulos said he expected the Trainose and ROSCO deals would be wrapped up in the second half of next year, helping Greece cut transport costs in Greece by modernizing the railway network and boosting its usage.
Russia’s train monopoly RZC , which has teamed up with Greek building group GEK Terna to bid for Trainose has said it was ready to invest at least 100 million euros in the company.
Other possible suitors include French train operator SNCF and Romania’s S.C. Grup Feroviar Roman.
Greece also has a big real estate portfolio and Maniatopoulos said that securitization was one option being considered for the properties.
“There are many real estate properties and when the conditions are ripe – which I don’t see very far from here, maybe in 2014 or 2015 – they could give a big revenue boost,” he said.
($1 = 0.7283 euros)
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(Editing by Susan Fenton)