Sale of state Sibir Airlines stake could be moved to end-May - source
MOSCOW. April 23 (Interfax) - The sale of the 25% state stock stake in OJSC Sibir Airlines could be moved to the end of next month, a source familiar with the sales procedure told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.
"It will be moved a bit, most likely. Roughly to the end of May," the source said. "Rosimuschestvo [Russia's state property fund] wants to see Sibir's results for the year and then confirm a valuation," the source said.
It was thought the stake would be sold on April 25.
Russia's Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) approved a filing by the S7 group, which Sibir and the airline Globus are part of, for permission to acquire the state's stake. Applications were received from a group of S7 people signed by the group's General Director Vladislav Filev, and from Globus.
No other applications were submitted to the FAS.
The lowest sales price is 42.972 rubles per share, or 1.122 billion rubles for all 26,126 shares, representing 25.5% of the company's ordinary stock.
Rosimuschestvo has been trying to sell the stake since 2001, but the auctions were called off each time due to a lack of bids. The decision was made to transfer the organization of the tender to the airline's main creditor, Alfa-Bank .
At the present time, 71.3% of the stock in Sibir belongs to the S7 group, which is owned by Filev and his wife.
Sibir ended last year with net profits to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) of 546.378 million rubles, down 25.6%, and with sales revenues at 55.863 billion rubles, up 23.4%.
Sibir operates 39 aircraft, including one Airbus 310, two Boeing 767s, and 36 A-320s.