Russia Seizes Control of Saint Petersburg Airport Management From Foreign Shareholders -- Update
01 12월 2023 - 10:09PM
Dow Jones News
By Mauro Orru
Russia ordered the transfer of rights to manage Saint
Petersburg's Pulkovo airport from foreign shareholders like
Germany's Fraport to a new entity, the latest seizure by the
Kremlin of assets in which foreign groups still have interests.
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree that
effectively transfers the stakes that foreign investors own in
Northern Capital Gateway--the company that operates Pulkovo
airport--to a new entity, VVSS Holding. Fraport owns a 25% stake in
Northern Capital Gateway as part of a 30-year concession agreement
that was signed in 2009 to operate and expand the airport.
While Fraport and other shareholders, including Qatar's F3
Holding and Emirati Thirty Seventh Investment, still hold their
stakes in the new entity, according to the decree, their voting
rights are now controlled by VVSS's management.
The decree said the move was in response to "the threat to the
national interests and economic security of the Russian Federation"
and violations by some foreign investors of obligations related to
the management of Northern Capital Gateway, though it didn't
elaborate.
A Fraport spokesman said the group was working to verify the
information from the decree and assess what it means for its
involvement in Saint Petersburg, pointing out that the company had
suspended its participation in the airport operating company since
the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Still, the latest move by the Kremlin highlights the risks to
Western companies with interests in Russia more than a year after
the war began. In April, Russia decreed that the state can take
temporary control of assets of companies or individuals from what
the Kremlin calls "unfriendly" states.
In April, Russia took control of the assets of Germany's Uniper
and Finland's Fortum in the country, handing the stakes in their
Russian subsidiaries to a government agency. In July, Russia
appointed Chechnya's agriculture minister as the new head of
Danone's business in the country and tapped a Russian businessman
to run Carlsberg's operations there.
Russian officials have said that the seizures were in
retaliation for similar moves by Western countries and that more
companies could be targeted. Many Western companies have struggled
to wind up their operations in Russia and the latest asset
seizures--and now management changes--serve as a warning shot to
those still looking to exit.
Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 01, 2023 07:54 ET (12:54 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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