It's not clear that TAP will pour any money onto Varig. From what I understood from the statements of both CEO's is that TAP is going to help Varig turnaround it's overwhelming finance burden, not necessarily with money. Since both airlines belong to Star Alliance, there are some costs that can be saved, code-shares to be made, etc. After Varig debts are solved, then TAP can get in and have 20% of the company (that's the max a foreign company can have). Even though TAP has been posting some good numbers, there are still some financial and structural problems to be solved which leaves not a lot of breath to gamble on another airline.However since TAP is the european biggest airline to Brasil with 6 daily flights, it's only natural to try to expand to one of it's natural fields of expertise, being the other the Portuguese-speaking Africa.