Sheremetyevo signs agreement to purchase Domodedovo Airport
MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - Sheremetyevo International Airport has signed an agreement for the sale of Domodedovo Airport through its 100% subsidiary Perspektiva LLC and PJSC PSB Bank, the airport's press service said.
On behalf of Perspektiva LLC, the agreement was signed by the company's general director, Alexander Ilyin, in the presence of the head of Sheremetyevo International Airport, Mikhail Vasilenko.
"We face difficult work in various areas of activity. Today, Domodedovo is a fragmented asset consisting of 25 companies that incur losses of around 10 billion rubles annually and have a significant debt burden of 75 billion rubles," Vasilenko was quoted as saying by the press service.
"Our task is to formulate a recovery program for Domodedovo Airport and present it to the controlling state authorities within the established deadlines. The future program depends on the dynamics of passenger traffic formation in Russia and the Moscow aviation hub," he said.
The Domodedovo board of directors will task executive bodies with optimizing the company's structure, breaking even and improving service quality, Vasilenko said.
Sberbank is ready to participate in Domodedovo's turnaround program. "As a long-standing partner and creditor of Sheremetyevo, Sberbank is ready to facilitate the turnaround program," the bank's press service said, quoting Deputy CEO Anatoly Popov.
Sberbank welcomes the Sheremetyevo Group's acquisition of Domodedovo Airport he said. "This is a timely and responsible decision regarding a strategic asset facing a challenging period. Domodedovo's significant debt burden and losses are largely a consequence of the external shocks of recent years, to which the airport's business model, focused on international air traffic, has proven particularly vulnerable," Popov said.
The winner of the privatization tender for the sale of the Domodedovo group of companies, held on January 29, was the JSC International Airport Sheremetyevo group's Perspektiva LLC, which offered 66.13 billion rubles for the asset. The bidding took place in the format of a Dutch auction where the reserve price of 132.3 billion rubles for the asset was to be lowered by up to 50% in increments of 10% of the starting price. If several bids were received at the starting price or an increment below that, the price would be raised in increments of 5%, the press office of PSB bank, which organized the sale, said earlier.
Sheremetyevo acquired Domodedovo using its own funds, without borrowing, Vasilenko said earlier. For Sheremetyevo, this is a business project "aimed at improving the health of an important part of the Moscow aviation hub," he said.
The Moscow Region Arbitration Court on June 17 granted a request by the Prosecutor General's Office to transfer 100% of DME Holding LLC to state ownership. The lawsuit claimed that the airport's beneficiaries, Dmitry Kamenschik and Valery Kogan, being residents of other countries, controlled, in violation of Russian law, the assets of an enterprise of strategic importance to Russia and funneled its profits abroad.
Domodedovo was controlled by businessman Dmitry Kamenshchik until June last year. The Moscow Region Arbitration Court ordered that the airport be seized and transferred to the state following a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General's Office. The lawsuit claimed that the airport's beneficiaries, Kamenschik and Valery Kogan, being residents of other countries, in violation of Russian law controlled the assets of an enterprise that is of strategic importance to Russia and funneled its profits abroad.
Kamenschik gained control of Domodedovo during the privatization of the airport's assets in the late 1990s. Investments by his companies were used to build new passenger and cargo terminals, making the airport one of the country's biggest.
Passenger traffic at Domodedovo Airport has been decreasing over the last few years. In 2025, it served almost 13.9 million people, down 11% from the previous year. It was reported that the biggest base carriers of the airport, S7 and Ural Airlines , were having problems with servicing Airbus A320neo aircraft, leading their traffic to decrease. Domodedovo CEO Andrei Ivanov said that 2026 was expected to be "better in terms of passenger traffic, cargo traffic and financial results" for the airport. He said that the airport had reached a preliminary agreement with S7 on increasing flights and new destinations.
