Five companies reportedly made preliminary bids on Tuesday for a stake in South Korea's second largest carrier, Asiana Airlines.
Market sources say the leading bids for a 31-percent stake in the airline come from cosmetics firm Aekyung, Korea's largest brokerage consortium Mirae Asset Daewoo, and local activist fund Korea Corporate Governance Improvement.
Among those three, Aekyung is the only one with experience in the airline business owning Korea's largest budget carrier, Jeju Air.
Industry observers estimate the price of the deal to be roughly 1.6 billion dollars.
The airline's number one shareholder Kumho Industrial plans to complete the sale by the end of this year.