VTB Capital Seeks To Attract Finance
Published: May 18, 2011 (Issue # 1656)
HOMEGROWN CHOPPERS
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Six helicopter simulators like the one above are to be manufactured for Venezuela by company Transas. Each simulator costs around $10 million.
VTB Capital, together with Aeroexpress, will create a design company to attract financing for the construction of terminals at Pulkovo Airport and at Baltiisky Railway Station, according to Alexei Chichkanov, chairman of the city’s committee for investment and strategic projects (CISP).
Aeroexpress works in passenger rail transport from the center of Moscow to the Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports. According to SPARK-Interfax, 50 percent of the company belongs to Russian Railways, and 25 percent belongs to the co-owners of one of Russia’s leading rail companies, Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev.
Russian Railways will invest 8 billion rubles ($284 million) in the construction of the rail track and viaducts leading from the airport to the station, and VTB, in partnership with Aeroexpress, will work on the terminals, which will cost 1 billion rubles ($35.45), Chichkanov said.
Previously, CISP representatives had said that the new rail facility would cost 13 billion rubles ($461 million), but the cost of the project has now been optimized to 9 billion rubles, CISP press secretary Zarina Gubayeva said.
“We’re assessing the possibility of participating and being partners in this project,” said Oleg Pankratovport, head of the financial infrastructure department at VTB Capital.