St. Petersburg’s government chose Citigroup Inc. and two other foreign companies to advise on partners for a planned 30 billion-ruble ($1.2 billion) expansion of the city-owned Pulkovo airport, Russia’s biggest outside Moscow.

Citibank Global Markets Ltd., the Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP law firm and the U.K.-based ASM, a company that specializes in advising on the development of airports, will work with city officials on finding a non-state investor by next February to finance the bulk of the project.

St. Petersburg will call a tender next month and select a short list of finalists by June, city government officials said at a presentation in St. Petersburg on Friday. Municipal authorities are pursuing a “public-private partnership” and may offer a concession to run Pulkovo’s operations or sell part of the airport.

Pulkovo could handle 20 percent more people this year than in 2007, Andrei Murov, director general of Pulkovo Airport, the city-owned company that manages the airport’s operations, said at the presentation. It served 6.1 million passengers in 2007, 20 percent more than the previous year.

St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, is trying to position Pulkovo as a regional hub and compete with destinations in the Baltics and Scandinavia. The planned upgrade at the airport includes adding runways and building a new passenger terminal.

News source: SPTimes.ru
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