The Russian government has scrapped its first attempt to sell Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport by auction when only a little-known businessman from the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya applied but failed to take part in the bidding, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
Businessman Yevgeny Bogaty was the sole applicant for the auction, but he ultimately was unable to bid on the airport after failing to submit all of the required documents. Open corporate records show Bogaty as the owner of two small businesses unrelated to the aviation sector.
An anonymous potential buyer told The Bell that the floor price of 132 billion rubles ($1.69 billion) for DME Holding, which owns Domodedovo, and the airport’s estimated debt of 70 billion rubles dampened interest from investors.
A source in the aviation industry told the outlet that a second attempt at auctioning Domodedovo at a lower price would likely be announced.
Earlier, The Bell reported that private shareholders of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports, as well as airport holdings owned by the billionaires Viktor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, were interested in buying Domodedovo.
In June, a court ruled to transfer ownership of Domodedovo to the Russian state after determining that its two owners were foreign residents who did not have the right to manage the airport, which is the fourth busiest in Russia.
Dmitry Kamenshchik, Domodedovo’s longtime controlling owner and key operator, was a resident of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates between 2022 and 2023. The co-owner, Valery Kogan, is a Russian-Israeli businessman.
Andrei Ivanov, a former minister who assumed management of the nationalized airport, said in July that Domodedovo had significant debts and would seek a new owner.
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