air traffic
Fraport writes off 48 million euros
A cargo plane takes off at Frankfurt Airport. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Frankfurt Airport is slowly working its way out of the Corona crisis. But a once-celebrated investment in an airport in Russia is depressing earnings.
The Frankfurt airport operator Fraport has written off a high double-digit million amount in connection with its minority stake in St. Petersburg Airport. This weighed on the quarterly results published on Tuesday.
With a 40 percent increase in sales of almost 540 million euros, the Fraport shareholders accounted for a loss of 108 million euros in the first quarter (Q1 2021: -64.9 million). The company thus performed worse than expected by analysts on average.
The MDax Group has been a minority shareholder in the Petersburg airport operator Northern Capital Gateway since 2009 via a holding company in Cyprus. The claim against the holding company was revised down by 48.2 million euros, as the company announced. Fraport, which is mostly publicly controlled, currently sees no way to part with the stake, but has discontinued its activities in Russia.
Operating profit increases
The company puts the remaining book value of the loan receivables (as of March 31) at EUR 110.9 million. In the 2020 financial year there had already been a downward value adjustment of 9.7 million euros. Other NCG owners are VTB Bank, which is affected by western sanctions, and the Qatar Investment Authority from the Arab Emirate of Qatar.
The Group’s operating profit (Ebitda), on the other hand, increased by 75.9 percent to EUR 70.7 million. For 2022 as a whole, CEO Stefan Schulte expects demand to recover to between 39 million and 46 million passengers in Frankfurt. This corresponds to up to 65 percent of the volume before the Corona crisis. In April, after a weak start to the year, the number of passengers reached 66 percent of the comparative figure for 2019. The Fraport airports operated abroad also increased significantly.
In addition to the Ukraine war, the high rate of inflation is also affecting business, the company reported. However, it confirmed its forecast of being able to report a profit of EUR 50 million to EUR 150 million on sales of around EUR 3 billion at the end of the year.