The group lays claim to the local airport

Renova of Viktor Vekselberg is close to gaining control over the Rostov-on-Don airport. The government transferred to the region 38% of the shares of Rostov-on-Don Airport OJSC, which will then go to the Renova joint venture and the regional government. But the key shareholder of the airport, Ivan Savvidi, opposes this. He also claims to be an investor and insists on holding a competition for the package. Another competitor of Renova in the fight for the asset could be Oleg Deripaska's Basel.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government order on the transfer of 38% of the authorized capital (50.6% of ordinary shares) of Rostov-on-Don Airport OJSC to the ownership of the Rostov region. It will also receive the property complex of the airfield. As press secretary of the regional Ministry of Transport Inna Babayan clarified to Kommersant, this is a runway, apron, taxiways and aircraft parking areas.

At the second stage, the region will contribute shares to the capital of OJSC Rostovaeroinvest, which was registered on May 23. 25% of it belongs to Rostovatodortrans and 75% to OJSC Koltsovo-Invest, part of the Renova group. The airfield complex is not subject to privatization. Through Rostovaeroinvest, Renova is going to invest in the reconstruction of the existing runway at Rostov airport and finance the construction of a new Yuzhny airport with a capacity of up to 8 million passengers per year. The company also intends to build all ground infrastructure at the new airport, including a cargo terminal and a new fueling complex.

OJSC Rostov-on-Don Airport served 1.7 million passengers in 2011. Owns 100% of the fueling complex, terminals, and leases the airfield complex. On domestic lines, the main passenger flow is in the Moscow direction. The key airlines are Donavia, Sibir and UTair. Revenue in 2011 amounted to 1.1 billion rubles, net profit - 135 million rubles. 52.45% of the authorized capital (33.5% of ordinary shares) belongs to Primery Don LLC of Ivan Savvidi, 38% (50.6% of ordinary shares) belongs to the state.

As the head of the Koltsovo airport, Evgeny Chudnovsky, told Kommersant, it is now difficult to clarify the size of Renova’s investment in the Rostov-on-Don airport, since it is necessary to evaluate the property contributed by the regional authorities. According to the agreement that the Federal Property Management Agency signed in March with the regional authorities, the volume of private financing for the new airport should amount to 16.4 billion rubles. The administration of the regional governor clarified to Kommersant that the total amount of funding for the project is 26.8 billion rubles, of which the share of the federal budget is 9.6 billion rubles, regional authorities will invest 812 million rubles. In 2011, Renova planned to spend 800 million rubles. for the reconstruction of the existing strip and at least 6 billion rubles. to the new terminal.

Renova has been involved in the airport business for a long time. Now the group is creating "Airports of the Regions" - a management company for a specialized holding company, which will include the airports of Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The group also lays claim to Domodedovo, wants to buy Vladivostok airport, and is interested in a number of other regional airports.

But the appearance of Renova at the Rostov-on-Don airport is opposed by its private co-owner, Primary Don LLC, Ivan Savvidi. The businessman believes that investors should be attracted on a competitive basis, and he himself aspires to participate in the development of the airport. “We wrote letters to Governor Vasily Golubev and Minister of Economy Andrei Belousov with relevant proposals,” Mr. Savvidi told Kommersant.

Managing partner of the company "Muranov, Chernyakov and Partners" Dmitry Chernyakov does not see any legal grounds for challenging the transfer of shares of the operating airport to a joint venture with Renova, since federal law N178 "On the privatization of state and municipal property" allows this. The only clue can be found if Ivan Savvidi manages to prove violations of antimonopoly laws when creating a joint venture. The Ministry of Transport and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise AGA, which is responsible for the reconstruction of the airport airfield complex, were unable to assess the situation. Evgeny Chudnovsky only says that the investment volumes announced by Renova can be increased.

The head of the analytical service of the AviaPort agency, Oleg Panteleev, believes that the most logical investor of the Rostov airport is not Ivan Savvidi or Renova, but Oleg Deripaska’s Basel, which owns five airports in the Krasnodar region and has “a strong competitor at hand in "Renovas" are useless." According to Mr. Savvidi, Basel offered him to sell the shares for $67 million. “However, I refused. Just as I refused to sell Rosneft the fuel filling complex for $30 million,” he says. According to the businessman, there were no direct negotiations with Renova, although he “was given figures of $16-17 million.” Basel says that the initiative to sell in the negotiations came from the shareholders of the Rostov airport, but “no decisions were made.”

Maria Cherkasova

Renova flies to Rostov-on-Don