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Hahn insolvency administrator Jan Markus Plathner
Photo: Thomas Frey / dpa
Those in crisis are rarely choosy when it comes to the rescuers.
In the past, when political prestige projects were faltering, this has led to the doors being opened to dubious investors.
Halle-Leipzig Airport brought a mysterious Russian on board years ago.
The insolvent Hahn Airport could soon follow.
In the sales poker for Crisis Airport, NR Holding AG, led by the Russian majority shareholder Viktor Charitonin, is examining a stake of now only less than 25 percent.
"This would mean that NR Holding AG's share would be below the blocking minority and it would have no right of veto or influence on the operational management," the company said.
NR Holding owns the Nürburgring racetrack, which Charitonin acquired a few years ago.
The pharmaceutical company Charitonin is only interested in a financial and not a strategic commitment at the airport in the Hunsrück.
“The remaining 75 percent of the shares in the buyer company are to be held by investors in Germany – which ones are still to be clarified,” it said.
"Nothing unusual," believe the creditors
The Hahn plan with Kharitonin had received a tremendous response because of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
The Hessian Finance Minister Michael Boddenberg (CDU) said: "At the moment you shouldn't and can't do business with Russian oligarchs." The state of Hesse still holds 17.5 percent of the airport in Rhineland-Palatinate.
A Hahn creditors' meeting had not recently given the green light for a sale to NR Holding AG.
But she emphasized: »Viktor Charitonin is not an oligarch.
He has no influence on Russian politics.« The description that the businessman is close to the Kremlin is wrong.
“Of course he has contacts with Russian authorities, ministries and the Kremlin.
Contacts between the executive boards of leading German companies and the federal government are nothing unusual here either.
He is an independent and internationally active pharmaceutical company with numerous companies and many thousands of employees for whom he is responsible.
The reservations against Charitonin in Germany are discriminatory.
In addition, he is not on any sanctions list anywhere in the world.
The reasoning suffers from the fact that it ignores the political realities in Moscow.
According to many experts, Russian billionaires actually have little influence on the Kremlin.
This also applies to billionaires with more capital than Charitonin.
But it doesn't apply the other way around.
The Kremlin does have influence over Russian magnates.
The Russian elite researcher Nikolai Petrov, for example, argues that the Russian state has most of the Russian super-rich in its hands because they constantly have to expect the Kremlin to confiscate their assets.
Indirectly, Moscow could certainly exert influence - even if Charitonin does not go in and out of Vladimir Putin's presidential office.
The company that owns the airport also explains: "As the insolvency administrator at Hahn Airport has already announced, the buyer and seller have jointly decided to submit this process to the Federal Ministry of Economics for review."
It's about 430 employees
Its department head Robert Habeck (Greens) has confirmed this test according to the Foreign Trade Act.
The question is whether Hahn Airport, which rarely has night flight permits, is part of the critical infrastructure and whether a sale would jeopardize public safety and order.
Charitonins NR Holding AG points out that the annual number of passengers and tons of freight handled at Hahn Airport is below the threshold at which an airport is officially classified as critical infrastructure.
"Nevertheless, the purchasing company proactively subjected itself to this check for reasons of transparency."
The holding assures that it is interested in a solid continuation of the Hahn flight operations.
“We are aiming to take on the approximately 430 employees at the airport.
And we also want to make the absolutely necessary and further investments at the airport," it said.
With material from dpa.
