Agreement finally reached over the region's stake

Published: 6/2/2000

It seems that the federal authorities and Novosibirsk regional government have finally reached an agreement regarding the sale of the Ministry of State Property's sale of its 51% stake in Tolmachevo Airport in Novosibirsk. Valery Bashkov, Chairman of the airport's board and Vice-Governor of Novosibirsk Region has reported that the Novosibirsk Region Administration and Tolmachevo Airport are preparing for the sale of the state's 51% stake in the airport. It appears however, that the region's plan of transferring the airport to the region with the federal authorities receiving dividends from the airport has been rejected. Victor Tolokonsky, the Governor of Novosibirsk Region has asked the regional government department responsible for the sector with the airport to produce a business plan for the next five years and develop the investment guarantees required by the Ministry of State Property as a condition of sale. Alexander Mozherin, the airport's General Director will supervise the creation of the plan and present it on 1st August. Bashkov estimates that the tender's terms will include an investment requirement of $30m for the successful bidder. The investments including a $15.2m (380m rubles) runway reconstruction and an additional of $17m reported to be required to complete the renovation of the international passenger terminal. Mozherin stated that the company had already invested $27.5m in the development of the airport during the past three years. Investing $11.1m to reconstruct runway-1 and $12m to re-equip of the international passenger terminal. In 2000 the airport is committed to invest about $2m for the completion of repairs to runway-1 and $390,000 to purchase lighting equipment. There has been potential interest in airport from a number of groups according to reports, but the regional government is said to favour Sibir as the ultimate buyer, given they believe that the price and the requirements of the tender will be beyond their resources. In 1999, Tolmachevo Airport reported $3.1m (79.25m rubles) pre-tax profit and $ 2.2m (53.8m rubles) net profit. The main shareholders are Ministry of State property (51%), Itog from Moscow (12.1%) and Ertan from Moscow (7.89%).

Article ID: 1835