The airport in the Hunsrück is to get a new owner.
(Photo: imago images/Aviation-Stock)
Frankfurt, Berlin A new investor has been found for the insolvent Hahn Airport. According to information from the Handelsblatt, entrepreneur Peter Adrian has good prospects of being awarded the contract. Adrian is President of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). The hobby pilot and entrepreneur manages Triwo AG, which he built up and which, in addition to industrial and commercial parks, also operates several airfields.
A spokesman for the insolvency administrator Jan Markus Plathner did not want to comment on the information. There is no decision yet. The creditors of four Hahn companies had initially decided on Thursday.
>> Read here: Insolvency administrator sets deadline for offers for Hahn Airport
Now the creditors’ committee of the main shareholder – the operating company Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH – has to make a decision. That should possibly happen on Friday afternoon, as the German Press Agency reported. Only after approval by the committee is the buyer known.
The future of the Hahn regional airport in the Hunsrück has been a subject of debate for years. In 2016, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which held 82.5 percent of the shares in the airport at the time, decided to sell the stake. The second shareholder, the state of Hesse, wanted to sell its 17.5 percent stake later, but has not done so to date.
The portfolio of the real estate entrepreneur and hobby pilot also includes several airports.
(Photo: dpa)
An initial attempt to sell failed after increasing doubts arose about the solidity of the Chinese company Shanghai Yiqian Trading (SYT). Another Chinese buyer, logistics giant HNA, followed in 2017. However, it went bankrupt at the beginning of 2021, Hahn Airport followed in October 2021
Then the Frankfurt Swift Conjoy GmbH wanted to buy the airport, but did not pay on time. Most recently, two interested parties were in the running: the Mainz-based Richter group, a real estate company, and NR Holding. She owns the Nurburgring.
Behind the company is the oligarch and Russian pharmaceutical entrepreneur Viktor Charitonin. Both have already transferred the purchase amount to an escrow account. But there was no green light from creditors. Above all, NR Holding is causing them headaches because of the Russian owner, even though Charitonin is not yet on the list of sanctions that the EU put together because of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
According to reports, there were also concerns about the Russian investor from the American side. Because the US Army sometimes continues to use its former base, which was transferred to civilian administration in 1993, as a hub for the movement of troops and material.
If the creditors’ committee of the main company quickly decides in favor of the new bidder, the impasse around the regional airport would come to an end. The portfolio of Adrians Triwo AG includes the airfields Egelsbach, Oberpfaffenhofen, Zweibrücken and Mending.
More: How the new DIHK President Peter Adrian wants to fight the centrifugal forces in the trade association