January 8 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government said it selected French company Vinci Airports as best bidder in a tender for a 25-year concession contract to operate the Nikola Tesla international airport in Belgrade.
Vinci Airports is obliged to sign the concession agreement within 60 days after January 5 when its bid was selected, the government said in a public announcement posted on the website of airport operator Aerodrom Nikola Tesla [BEL:AERO] on Saturday.
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If it fails to do so, the government will invite the second-ranked bidder to sign a concession deal, the government said.
The French company offered to pay 501 million euro ($601 million) for the concession plus an annual concession fee of between 4.5 million euro and 16 million euro. Moreover, Vinci committed to making investments worth 732 million euro during the 25-year term of the concession, Serbian news agency Tanjug reported on Sunday.
The Serbian government will receive a total of 417 million euro directly, while 84 million euro will be paid to the retail shareholders in Aerodrom Nikola Tesla, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said, according to a government statement issued on Saturday.
Vinci has committed to keep the entire workforce of Aerodrom Nikola Tesla and there will not be a single layoff, Vucic said in a video file posted on the website Tanjug on Saturday.
"The people who work at Belgrade airport will keep working there."
Another important factor is that Vinci has the contractual obligation not to change or increase the airport fees in the next three years, Vucic said.
"Nikola Tesla airport will act as a base of the company in Central and Eastern Europe, a region where Vinci has not been active so far," the CEO of Vinci, Nicolas Notebaert, said in an e-mailed statement late on Sunday.
Two other bidders were very near the offer of Vinci and it was very difficult for the government to make a decision. Therefore, it needed to extend the deadline for picking the best bid to January 5 from December 29, Vucic said in the video file.
Four investors submitted binding bids in the tender - three consortia and Vinci Airports.
The three consortia comprise respectively: France's Meridiam Eastern Europe Investments, Switzerland's Zurich Airport AG and France's Eiffage; India's GMR Infrastructure Limited and Greece's Terna; South Korea's Incheon International Airport Corporation, Turkey's Yatirimlar ve isletme and Russia's VTB Capital Infrastructure, according to the public notice.
The Serbian government owns 83.1% of Aerodrom Nikola Tesla, the operator of Belgrade airport. The company's net profit dropped to 3.2 billion dinars ($32.4 milion/27 million euro) in 2016, from 3.3 billion dinars in the previous year.
(1 euro = 118.670 dinars)