THE M.R. Štefánika airport in Bratislava will be classified as a company of strategic importance to the economy, according to a cabinet resolution passed on December 13.
According to Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny, the state is obliged to retain at least 51 percent ownership of all such “strategic companies”.
The ministry is now drawing up a business plan for the airport that should be introduced just before Christmas.
According to Vážny, the airport, with annual revenues of about Sk1 billion, “will have no difficulty in obtaining a loan of Sk2.5 billion".
In October the government scrapped the privatization sale of 66 percent in the airport to the TwoOne consortium, consisting of Vienna airport, private equity group Penta Investments, and the Austrian Raiffeisen Zentralbank. The consortium was to pay Sk6 billion for the stake and invest around Sk19 billion by 2015 into developing the airport.
The cabinet of Robert Fico insisted, however, that the state should not sell the stake, arguing that it was a strategic asset that state managers could develop every bit as well as private owners.
