PRESS: Private investors to sell 10% in Sheremetyevo in 2018

MOSCOW, Jan 17 (PRIME) -- Private investors of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport plan to sell 10% in the airport to a strategic investor in 2018, Alexander Ponomarenko, co-owner and chairman of the board of directors, told business daily Vedomosti in an interview released on Wednesday.

“We are thinking about selling 10% shares in Sheremetyevo, most likely to a strategic investor, a professional market participant. So that we do not lose touch with reality and become more understandable to airlines, as we intent to fight for transit. That’s why we want to sell 10%,” Ponomarenko said.

The sale should take place this year, there are no talks yet, but work is already being held with consultants, he said.

Sheremetyevo Holding, controlled by TPS Avia Group of businessmen Arkady Rotenberg, Alexander Skorobogatko, and Ponomarenko, holds 66% in the airport, while the Federal State Property Management Agency has 30.43%. The remaining shares are held by national flagship carrier Aeroflot and VEB Capital.

Ponomarenko also said that the airport plans to raise its passenger traffic by 14.6% to 46 million people in 2018. Under the airport’s development strategy, the passenger traffic is projected to jump to 80 million people by 2026.

The airport’s total investments in the strategic development program will amount to U.S. $3.506 billion until 2026, including $940 million of the federal budget investments in construction of the airport’s third runway, Ponomarenko said.

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