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ATI Newsire, May 19, 2005 Slovakia’s Government has appointed a financial consortium to head the long-awaited privatisation of the country’s main Bratislava International Airport as well as the regional airport at Kosice. Privatisation is to be carried out over a nine-month period with much of the work completed during this year. A formal tender process will, as a first step, seek expressions of interest by late summer. Slovakia’s ministry of transport signed the agreement with a group led by Austria’s Meinl Bank. The consortium includes the bank’s investment advisory arm, as well as UK consultant SH&E and Austrian law firm DLA Weiss-Tessbach. The ministry says that it wants to transform Bratislava into a major Central European airport and promote the long-term growth of Kosice Airport as a regional base for eastern Slovakia, northeast Hungary, and parts of Poland and Ukraine. This will be achieved, it adds, by attracting investors with sufficient capital and experience. No indication has yet been given as to how large a shareholding in the airports will be sold by the Government. Meinl Capital Advisors chairman Peter Gumpel says: “Emergence of Slovakia ads a major industrial and tourism centre in Central Europe will require rapid development of the country’s air transport capacity. “We see this project both as a highly-interesting and timely investment opportunity for strategic and financial investors in this sector as well as an important step in the economic development of Slovakia.” Bratislava Airport is the base for Slovak flag-carrier Slovak Airlines – now under the control of Austrian Airlines Group – and aggressively-expanding budget carrier SkyEurope Airlines, which also operates from Kosice. Vienna International Airport is located just over the border from Bratislava and the Austrian hub’s privatised operator, Flughafen Wien, has previously expressed strong interest in participating in the privatisation of the Slovak capital airport.
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