The Moscow Property Department has confirmed its intention to sell 100% of the National Hotel OJSC, which belongs to the city, on whose balance sheet there is a five-star hotel of the same name with 201 rooms. The department has published a draft resolution according to which this package is planned to be included in the medium-term program for the privatization of Moscow property for 2011-2013.

Kommersant reported on the possible sale of the National, one of the most famous hotels in the capital, located on Mokhovaya Street 15/1, next to the Okhotny Ryad metro station. Then it became known that immediately after the May holidays, the property department ordered an assessment of the hotel, which was about to be completed. “We are expecting the results of the assessment any day now,” one of the city hall officials told Kommersant. According to him, the specific timing of the auction for the sale of 100% of the hotel is planned to be determined at a meeting with Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Back in 2010, under the former mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor’s office valued the facility at 1 billion rubles. Then the audit was carried out in order to transfer the hotel to the balance sheet of OJSC Hotel Company (GC), which the city created with Estee Lauder co-owner Ronald Lauder. This did not happen, since the process of corporatizing National was delayed: until September 2010, the company of the same name was a state unitary enterprise. The Group of Companies hoped to receive the National on its balance sheet after the change of ownership of the hotel, but with the change of mayor this process was completely frozen.

Experts consider the previous valuation of the hotel to be underestimated: according to their data, the value of this asset varies between 1.5-2 billion rubles. However, the final cost may be higher if the city wishes to put the hotel up for auction along with 427 antiques.

After the sale of National to a third-party buyer, the perfume magnate's partnership with the city authorities in the hotel business may be permanently terminated. Mr. Lauder has already refused to pay the promised 31.7 billion rubles. in exchange for 51% of the shares of the Hotel Company after it became known about the intentions of the city authorities to transfer the site under the demolished Rossiya Hotel into federal ownership ( see Kommersant on April 14 ).

The mayor’s office began massively selling off large assets under Sergei Sobyanin. The process accelerated after President Dmitry Medvedev announced in November last year the need for regional authorities to abandon “newspapers and steamships.” The mayor's office has already sold its shares in the Bank of Moscow to VTB, and its stake in Sibir Energy to Gazprom Neft.

Khalil Aminov

National will still be sold