Air One’s owner Carlo Toto is ready to pull out from the race to acquire a 39.9 pct stake of Alitalia, which the government has put up for sale. The report is according to the daily Finanza & Mercati newspaper in an unsourced report. The newspaper also said the ailing airline may be put under administration.

According to the Corriere della Sera daily, however, the government is also considering starting one-to-one negotiations with all the three investors which presented a non-binding offer in April: Air One, the Texas Pacific-Matlin Patterson- Mediobanca consortium; and the Aeroflot- Unicredito consortium.

On Friday the Italian government, which has already postponed the Alitalia bid once, said it has extended the bid deadline again to July 23 from July 12 to give the parties interested more time to examine the airline’s situation.
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