Status: 04/04/2023 12:50 p.m
Hahn Airport is taken over by the real estate developer Triwo. The company, which is headed by DIHK President Peter Adrian, was only recently returned to the group of bidders. Now the price seems to be right.
The Trier real estate developer Triwo has bought the insolvent Hunsrück Airport Hahn. According to the insolvency administrator, the company offered the highest purchase price. “The bidding process has been successfully completed with the fulfillment of all implementation requirements and the sale to Triwo AG,” said insolvency administrator Jan Markus Plathner.
The sum, about which it was agreed not to disclose, had already been transferred to an escrow account. Flight operations will continue. Triwo had previously offered a lower purchase price for the former US air base and now apparently increased it enough to win the bid.
DIHK President flies himself
All of the approximately 400 employees at the only major commercial airport in Rhineland-Palatinate will be taken on by the investor, as Plathner further announced. The votes for Triwo in the four creditors’ meetings and in the creditors’ committee of the main company were unanimous.
The CEO of Triwo AG Trier is the President of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), Peter Adrian. He has a pilot’s license himself. “We rate the future prospects of Frankfurt-Hahn Airport as good,” says Adrian. Therefore, the company wants to “invest in the airport infrastructure, achieve further growth in passenger and freight traffic and implement sustainable real estate development”.
Decision already made on Thursday?
In addition to industrial and commercial parks, Triwo already operates four airfields. According to media reports, creditors unanimously voted in favor of the new bidder behind closed doors last Thursday.
The state of Hesse holds a 17.5 percent stake in the insolvent operating company Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn GmbH. Hahn Airport went bankrupt in autumn 2021 and sold at the end of June 2022 for a secret sum to the investor group Swift Conjoy GmbH in Frankfurt. However, the latter had not paid the purchase price, so the deal burst.
Other bidders without success
After the failure of Swift Conjoy, the focus then shifted to the bidders with the second and third highest offers: the Mainz real estate group Richter and the NR Holding of the Nürburgring around the Russian entrepreneur Viktor Charitonin.
They had both signed a purchase agreement and transferred the purchase price to an escrow account – but did not get the green light from the creditors and no license for flight operations. When Plathner surprisingly reopened the investor process, the Turkish airport operator YDA also expressed interest.
Current status of Hahn Airport
Sebastian Grauer, SWR Trier, April 4, 2023 12:50 p.m