The final decision on Sheremetyevo Airport’s stake sale could be made this year, aiming to sell to a strategic or a financial investor, most likely a foreign one, the chairman of Sheremetyevo’s board Alexander Ponomarenko said in an interview with Reuters.
Last year, Sheremetyevo’s shareholders were considering selling up to 10 percent of the airport, to fund construction of a new passenger terminal, a tunnel under the airfield, a cargo terminal and a new fuelling station.
However, according to Ponomarenko, selling a bigger stake could get a higher price and attract more interest from potential buyers. “It is possible that we will not consider selling a 10 percent stake and will think of a 30 percent sale,” Ponomarenko told Reuters, without saying how much the stake would be worth.
A $2.5 billion expansion of the airport, including two more new passenger terminals, a railway, and a new cargo terminal would allow passenger traffic to increase to up to 100 million per year by 2026.
The money raised if a sale goes ahead might be needed to buy out a Russia’s 30.5 percent stake, for which Ponomarenko and his partners will have a call-option this autumn.
Sheremetyevo Holding company, which controls the business, has a 66 percent stake in the airport – one of Europe’s busiest with a traffic of 46 million people last year.
