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The Gunvor co-owner is building a business jet terminal, which could service planes operated by his Airfix Aviation.
Gennady Timchenko, a co-owner of the Gunvor oil trader, is investing in a business-aviation terminal at Sheremetyevo Airport, Vedomosti has learned.
"By 2011, we want to build a business terminal. The construction will be done by Avia-Group, which we hold a 26 percent stake in and an investor has 74 percent in," Mikhail Vasilenko, the airport's chief executive, said in a recent interview to Vedomosti.
He would only say that the investor is a firm called OOO Vega, whose owner, according to the Uniform State Register of Legal Entities, is the Cyprus-registered Sunhill Investments Ltd. But the board of directors of OOO Avia-Group, which was disclosed in Sheremetyevo's nine-month financial results to Russian accounting standards, suggests who the real investor is.
In addition to two executives from Sheremetyevo, the board includes Avia-Group chief executive Mikhail Semyonov, Vladimir Isayev and Andrei Spiridonov, all of whom have direct links to companies controlled by Timchenko.
Since 2003, Isayev has been the head of Surguteks and along with Spiridonov is a founder of Transoil SNG. Spiridonov and Semyonov are both on the board of directors of a Surguteks subsidiary, the Regiongarant insurance company.
A representative for Timchenko confirmed to Vedomosti that he was Avia-Group's investor.
The company has been partnered with Sheremetyevo since mid-2006, according to the airport's financial reporting. Since then, it has built a hangar for business jets and a ramp, and now it is time for a passenger terminal, a source at Sheremetyevo told Vedomosti. The overall cost of the Business Aviation Center is about 500 million rubles ($16.6 million), and it is hoping to recoup expenses within about seven years, the source said, adding that the investors would be contributing proportionally based on their stakes in Avia-Group.
Currently, about 70 percent of all Moscow business traffic goes through Vnukovo, while Domodedovo has 15 percent to 20 percent. Sheremetyevo, which is an outsider on the market, expects its market share to jump to 30 percent to 50 percent once the new terminal is launched, a member of the Avia-Group board said.
The source at Sheremetyevo said the airport had been seeking an investor for several years before Timchenko agreed to join the project. Nafta Moskva owner Suleiman Kerimov had plans to do build the terminal, as did Vladimir Bazlov and Boris Minakhi, who are longtime acquaintances of the founder of .
But the projects never got off the ground because of high costs and risks, including the lack of a good road to the airport or a third runway, the source at Sheremetyevo said. But Vega was ready for serious involvement in the project.
In its annual billionaires list, Finans magazine estimated Timchenko's net worth at $4.15 billion, putting him in 23rd place, up from 375th a year earlier. The longtime acquaintance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earned his fortune in oil trading and also owns stakes in the bank Rossia, and Stroitransgaz.
Ground service for business jets and their passengers is a profitable business in Russia, earning margins of 25 percent to 30 percent, said Sergei Koltovich, an executive at Austrian carrier Jet Alliance, which is one of Europe's largest business jet operators.
Parking space in a hangar costs an average of 20,000 euros to 40,000 euros ($27,200 to $54,600) per month. Virtually all services for passengers are three to five times more expensive than on regular flights, the Sheremetyevo source said.
In 2009, the business aviation market fell by 30 percent, but the industry is optimistic that it will improve. Koltovich said the segment would grow by 15 percent to 25 percent annually for the next five years.
The Sheremetyevo project is logical fit given that Timchenko owns the Helsinki-based business jet operator Airfix Aviation.
Timchenko has already "built up a clientele," who would certainly go through the Business Aviation Center at Sheremetyevo, said Oleg Panteleyev, an analyst at Aviaport.
Novaya Gazeta has reported, citing Finnish airplane registries, that Airfix Aviation operates jets for , and 's Austrian subsidiaries.
A businessman close to Timchenko previously said Airfix Aviation has managed several Rosneft planes for many years, including a Cessna Citation X. That was the plane that Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov flew to London's Biggin Hill Airport in April 2003, when he was detained for several hours by immigration officials.
Offended, Bogdanchikov flew back to Russia instead of taking part in the London Economic Forum.
Robert Berke Berke
As the world continues to focus on its game of 'Where in the world is Gunvor's Timchenko?' a better question for readers is how the common global investor can benefit from any of this.