A group of 219 employees of Air India along with a private financial institution have submitted an expression of interest (EOI) for the national carrier.
Air India's Commercial Director Meenakshi Malik, who is the leading the employee group, confirmed to PTI on Monday that the EOI has been submitted.
It is not clear which financial institution has partnered with the employees.
The last date for submission of the EOI is Monday. The government will announce the names of the qualified bidders by December 28.
"A group of 200 plus employees have submitted the EOI for Air India along with a private financial institution," stated a senior government official.
The disinvestment process of Air India and its wholly-owned subsidiary Air India Express and ground handling joint venture (in which it has 50 per cent holding) recommenced in January this year.
Earlier this month, a note by Malik was circulated among the employees of the national carrier to bid for the airline.
"Financially, I know that we do not have the necessary wherewithal to participate in this bid process alone. We have accordingly searched out for and sought to secure the support of a private equity fund who will invest in the company with us and share the benefit," she said in the note.
"Due to the support we will receive from our financial partner, while I anticipate that each of us will have to make a contribution of no more than Rs 1 lakh to bid for the company, this is a detail which I will be better placed to convey to you all once we have passed the initial stage of the EOI," she said.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on October 29 had said that the bidding for Air India would be done on the basis of its enterprise value instead of equity value.
Enterprise value of a company includes the equity value, debt as well as cash with the company. Equity value measures the value of a company's shares.
