VINCI takes over Belgrade Airport
France's VINCI Airports officially took over the 25-year concession of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport at midnight. The company satisfied all the conditions precedent in the contract covering the airport’s financing, operations, maintenance, extension and upgrade. To complete this transaction, VINCI Airports raised loans amounting to a total of 420 million euros and maturing over a maximum of seventeen years from four multilateral institutions – IFC (a member of the World Bank Group), EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), Agence Française de Développement (via its subsidiary Proparco) and DEG (KfW Group) - as well as from six merchant banks (UniCredit, Intesa, Erste, Société Générale, Kommunalkredit and CIC). The loans will complement the equity that VINCI Airports is investing in the operation and cover the 501 million euro upfront concession fee paid to the Serbian government, as well as the airport extension and upgrade works set out in the contract. These financing arrangements constitute one of the largest financial transactions ever carried out in Serbia.
In a statement, the company said, "VINCI Airports will be in a position to harness the expertise it has built as a world-class operator to grow Serbia’s main airport into a major hub for South-eastern Europe and to drive its development". VINCI Airports, a top five global player in the international airport sector, manages the development and operation of 45 airports located in France, Portugal (including the Lisbon hub), United Kingdom, Sweden, Cambodia, Japan, United States, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Chile and Brazil. Served by over 250 airlines, VINCI Airports' network handled more than 180 million passengers in 2017. "VINCI Airports develops, finances, builds and operates airports, leveraging its investment capability, international network and know-how to optimise the management and performance of existing airport infrastructure, facility extensions and new-build construction projects", the company added.
Belgrade Airport's largest customer, Air Serbia, welcomed the takeover. "On behalf of the national airline of the Republic of Serbia, I would like to express my immeasurable gratitude for the cooperation we have had with the incumbent Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport team led by General Manager Saša Vlaisavljević. Consequently, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new team, which will pursue the management of this important airport from now on. Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is our home and an important air transport hub. In this regard, our strong, constructive and dedicated partnership can only benefit all of the involved stakeholders", Air Serbia's CEO, Duncan Naysmith, said. Air Serbia's Executive Director, Branislav Malović, added, "The arrival of VINCI Airports as the new airport concessionaire provides a strong impetus for Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport's further development, modernisation and advancement of business operations. As Air Serbia makes up almost half of Belgrade Airport's traffic, we are looking forward to working with the new partner with whom we will be able to continue strengthening established relations and cooperation. I am certain that further interconnections and collaboration of all relevant parties would yield improved results in the realms of the Serbian economy and tourism".
The outgoing General Manager of Belgrade Airport, Saša Vlaisavljević, recently said, "Belgrade Airport, with the planned investments which will in large part be utilised during the first five years of the concession, will look nowhere near to what it does today. I am fascinated by what is planned but it is not my place to reveal this information. At this point, all I can say is that Belgrade Airport will look entirely different in five years time". Speaking at the Airport Security Convention and Exhibition in Belgrade earlier this week, Mr Valisavljević touched upon the airport's accomplishments over the past five years. "We have added an extra million passengers, ten new scheduled airlines and seventeen new routes. We've increase the airport's value by over 100 million euros, invested seventy million euros of our own funds into infrastrucutre, capacity growth and the latest technologies", the outgoing General Manager noted. The airport is due to post a net profit of some 25 million euros this year.
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