GOVERNMENT on Monday began a drive to identify potential partners or investors for a stake in state-owned South African Airways, which is due for partial privatisation this year. “The pre-marketing exercise has started and it involves visiting whichever investors [the government] think would like to be strategic equity partners for SAA,” Errol Frankel from transaction advisers Merrill Lynch said. SAA announced last month that at least eight global carriers had so far informally expressed their intention to bid for a 20 % to 25% stake in Africa’s largest air carrier.