Dvorkovich knows nobody interested in Rossiya Airline, does not consider deal urgent
MOSCOW. April 25 (Interfax) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich does not know anyone that is interested in Aeroflot's subsidiary Rossiya Airlines, he said in an interview with Interfax.
"There are arguments 'for' and 'against' [selling the asset] from the point of view of the structure of the overall market, to put it this way. But no buyer has approached me personally, nobody has said: 'tell Aeroflot to sell Rossiya to us.' Maybe they approached other people, but nobody approached me," Dvorkovich said.
He said that he does not consider the sale of Rossiya to be urgent and is not convinced it is necessary in principle. "I believe that these kind of decisions should be made on the basis of consensus in any case. If Aeroflot's Board of Directors is not convinced that this will be good for the company, then I do not know whether we should do it or not," Dvorkovich said.
Aeroflot owns 75% minus one share of Rossiya Airlines. The government of St. Petersburg has a blocking stake in the company. In the fall of 2016 Dvorkovich ordered Russia's Transport Ministry to put together a proposal to sell Rossiya Airlines. The details of the proposals have not ever been disclosed. Aeroflot announced, however, that it did not consider the sale of the subsidiary to be timely.
Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov later said that the sale of the asset would be viable only after it returned to profit or "at least was not loss-making." According to Aeroflot's report to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for 2016, Rossiya posted 3.79 billion rubles in net profit, up from a loss of 3.3 billion ruble loss in 2015.
The consolidated Rossiya Airline was created on the basis of three regional airlines of Aeroflot Group - Rossiya, Donavia and Orenburg Airlines. It began operations in March 2016 and works in the middle segment of airlines. It is based in St. Petersburg and has branches in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don and Orenburg.