Presidential Candidate Mulls LAN Stake Sale

Chile presidential candidate and businessman Sebastian Pinera has hired Celfin Capital to evaluate alternatives for his stake in airline LAN Chile, including a sale. In a filing with Chile’s securities commission, Inversiones Santa Cecilia, one of the companies the Piñera Group controls, says it has hired Celfin to evaluate a sale of its 7.3% stake in LAN, which is worth roughly $210m. Jorge Errazuriz, vice chairman of Celfin, tells LatinFinance that the shop has been given the mandate to evaluate a sale of all of Piñera’s holdings in the airline, which add up to more than 27%, or $788m. Piñera says in a statement that a sale should take place before March 2010, the same month when elections will take place.