Novaport to buy Voronezh airport by September, to invest 5 bln rbl

MOSCOW, Jul 16 (PRIME) -- Russian airport holding Novaport plans to close an acquisition of an airport in the city of Voronezh by September, and it is ready to invest 5 billion rubles, Novaport’s co-owner told reporters on Tuesday.

“The deal is at the closing stage, we will definitely have closed it by September 1. If we speak about the total amount of investment, our investment in the Voronezh airport will stand at 5 billion rubles, like we’ve planned,” he said.

“It includes everything, as well as construction of a new facility. We like that airport, and we think that it has a chance to become a center for sorting of mail for the whole central Russia…We will develop Voronezh as a mail and passenger hub.”

The company expects the airport’s annual passenger traffic to reach 2 million passengers in the next 10 years, he said.

Novaport is interested in buying the Begishevo airport in the republic of Tatarstan’s city of Nizhnekamsk, but truck producer Kamaz is yet to decide to sell it, he said.

The company is also interested in buying airline Utair’s stake in the airport of Surgut. “We are not interested in the handling company, Utair itself is not interesting for us…But the airport of Surgut is attractive,” he said, adding that Novaport was waiting for the shareholders and creditors of Utair to decide on restructuring of the carrier’s debt.

Novaport is also considers acquisition of stakes in about 10 airports in the CIS countries. “Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the entire former CIS. We are working on deals covering about 10 airports, they are at different stages right now,” Trotsenko said.

In June, Anton Khodzhayan, director of the airport management department of Uzbek national carrier Uzbekistan Airlines, said that Novaport might sign a concession deal for three airports in Uzbekistan in November.

(62.8280 rubles – U.S. $1)

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