RPT-Czech govt approves Aero sale to Penta's Oakfield

(Repeats story published late on Wednesday)

PRAGUE, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The Czech government on Wednesday approved the sale of Czech military jet maker Aero Vodochody to Oakfield, a unit of investment group Penta, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Oakfield bid 2.91 billion crowns ($130 million) for the company and receivables due to the state, Konsolidacni said in a statement.

Aero makes sub-sonic L-159 military jets and civilian airplane parts, and also owns an airstrip near Prague which could potentially become a commercial airport, but has struggled to find customers for its jets.

The government is selling a 99.97 percent stake in Aero and two debts owed by Aero to the state worth a nominal 5.5 billion Czech crowns and $215 million respectively.

The second-placed bidder was a consortium of investment group PPF and investment bank J&T, which offered 1.72 billion crowns. ECO-INVESTMENT was third with 1.32 billion and the last bidder, engineering firm Slovacke Strojirny bid 217 million crowns.

Price was the sole deciding factor in the tender.

The centre-right government, which lost a confidence vote earlier this month, has been weighing whether to go ahead with the sale, or halt it and instead sell just the airstrip for the time being.

Another option was to split the company in two, one owning the airstrip and the other focused on manufacturing, and sell them separately. ((Reporting by Alan Crosby, editing Dane Hamilton. Prague Newsroom, alan.crosby@reuters.com, +420 724 107 550))

Keywords: MANUFACTURING CZECH AERO