Lufthansa Bids for Thomas Cook’s Condor Airline

Lufthansa is making an offer to acquire airlines/thomas-cook-airlines.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>Thomas Cook Group‘s German airline Condor with the option of taking over the British global travel company’s other airline operations, Lufthansa’s CEO announced this week.

“We decided yesterday in the meeting of the management board to bid for all of Condor with the option to be able to extend this (bid) to all Thomas Cook airlines,” said Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr via Reuters.

Spohr didn’t specify a price but told reporters that it was unlikely a single buyer could acquire all Thomas Cook airlines because of antitrust regulations.

Cash-strapped Thomas Cook recently put its airlines business up for sale in an effort to “enhance value to shareholders and intensify our strategic focus.”

In addition to Condor, Thomas Cook owns Thomas Cook Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia and Thomas Cook Airlines Balearics.

Last week, Reuters reported that Indigo Partners and Lufthansa were among likely bidders for Thomas Cook’s airlines business and that May 7 was the deadline for expressions of interest, citing sources.