Emmanuel Ukudolo l Thursday, April 6, 2023
BERLIN – Months of uncertainty around Germany’s insolvent Frankfurt-Hahn Airport ended on Tuesday with its sale to TRIWO, owned by the head of the country’s chamber of commerce.
The airport’s insolvency administrator Jan Markus Plathner confirmed that the real estate company of Peter Adrian, president of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), had bought the former US air base.
The purchase price, which was not disclosed, had already been transferred to an escrow account, Plathner said.
All 400 airport employees will be taken over by the investor and flight operations will continue. The votes in favour of acquisition by TRIWO in the four creditors’ meetings and the creditors’ committee of the main company were unanimous in each case.
“We assess the future prospects of Frankfurt-Hahn Airport as good,” Adrian said. Therefore, the company wanted to “make targeted investments in the airport infrastructure, achieve further growth in passenger and cargo traffic and implement sustainable real estate development.”
Hahn went into insolvency in autumn 2021 and at the end of June 2022 a majority stake was sold to the Frankfurt-based SWIFT Conjoy investor group for an undisclosed sum. However, the latter did not pay the purchase price and the deal fell through.
After the default, earlier bids by the NR Holding of Russian businessman Viktor Kharitonin and Mainz-based real estate group Richter were again taken into consideration, before Plathner in February restarted the investor process.
Located between Frankfurt and Luxembourg, the remote airport does not have a rail connection and primarily serves low-cost carriers flying to mainly European destinations.
