TIRANA, June 15 – Albania’s Competition Authority has okayed the takeover deal between the TIA airport concessionaire and China Everbright which will manage the country’s sole international airport for another 11 years for a reported €82 million.
Although not officially disclosed, the takeover deal initially announced in late April has been made under a Euro 82 million deal.
The airport’s infrastructure, ground handling and commercial services will now be handled by Keen Dynamics Limited, a newly established offshore based in the Cayman Islands, formed between Chinese state-owned investment company China Everbright Limited which holds a 75 percent stake and Hong Kong-based Friedmann Pacific Asset Management Limited focusing on global airport investments.
The Competition Authority says the China Everbright and Friedman Pacific had a total annual turnover of €1.9 billion in 2015 compared to TIA’s 4.9 billion lek (€35.4 million).
In late 2015, China Everbright announced plans to invest in airport and infrastructure assets in Europe as part of Beijing’s ambitious “One Belt One Road” initiative, a plan to wrap its own infrastructure and influence westward by land and by sea.
The deal comes at a time when the exclusive rights that the country’s sole international airport has been holding on international flights for a decade have finally been lifted, paving the way for the operation of new airports that would increase competition and reduce current ticket prices, estimated among the region’s highest. The April 2016 deal is expected to activate the new United Arab Emirates-funded Kukes airport in north-eastern Albania and the construction of two new airports in southern Albania serving the tourism industry.
The newly expected operation of the Kukes airport near the Kosovo border will extend TIA’s concession contract until April 2027.
The TIA consortium’s shareholders included AviAlliance GmbH, a subsidiary of Canada-based PSP Investments with 47 percent, Germany’s DEG with 31.7 percent and the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund with a 21.3 percent stake.
Earlier in March, Canada-based Bankers Petroleum signed a preliminary deal with China’s Geo-Jade Petroleum Corporation to sell its major Albania assets and a newly acquired minor oil block in Hungary for C$575 million (€392 mln).
The new deals are on track to increase China’s presence as a foreign investor in Albania from almost zero to almost half a billion euros making China among the country’s top foreign investors at a time when the economic superpower is already emerging as the country’s second largest trading partner.
