Cape Town - The R1,4 billion sale of 20 percent of South African Airways (SAA) to the SAir Group, Swissair`s holding company, was likely to be renegotiated for a lower sum if a clause giving SAir first option to buy into Apron Services, the ground handling company, and Air Chefs, the in-flight catering company, was withdrawn from the agreement, analysts said yesterday.
Trevor Hyman, the chief executive of Equity Alliance, an umbrella organisation representing seven black empowerment groups and 20 microbusinesses, has threatened to apply to the high court for an interdict preventing the sale unless the clause was removed. Hyman was overseas yesterday consulting UK-based Serko Group and US-based Ogden Aviation, Equity Alliance`s partners in a consortium that applied to the government in 1996 for a stake in Apron Services.
The government promised the consortium it would have a chance to bid when the company was privatised.
A spokesman for the department of public enterprises said the matter would be discussed at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow.
SAir has so far made no reply to requests for comment. But other sources in the industry said the group was probably at least as anxious to acquire stakes in Apron Services and Air Chefs as in SAA itself.
SAir is a diversified aviation group that derives just over half its operating revenues from flight operations including cargo and nearly half from associated services including in-flight catering and ground handling.