Intourist Gains Control over Kosmos Hotel
The Moscow government’s 20 percent stake in the Kosmos Hotel was sold at an auction yesterday. Intourist, the company owned by Sistema, has bought the major part of the stake at 570.8 million rubles gathering 64 percent of stocks in the hotel. Executives at Intourist believe the price to be quite realistic but minority shareholders of Kosmos contend that the hotel was undervalued at least three-fold. The Moscow authorities are happy with the deal as the stake was sold at the price which only 1 million rubles more than its face-value.
The Kosmos Hotel is located on Prospekt Mira, North East Moscow, in front of the All-Russian Exhibition Center. The total area comes to 106,113 sq. meters with 40,000 sq. meters of adjacent facilities area. The hotel’s capacity is over 2,000 guests.
An auction selling 33,537 million stakes in the Kosmos Hotel, or 20 percent in the authorized capital stock, was held yesterday. Intourist, Kosmos’s largest shareholder, bought 33,517 million stocks while the Vitra company managed to get only 20,000 stocks.
“We believe that $20 million for 20 percent of stocks in Kosmos is a reasonable price,” Alexander Arutyunov, the director general of Intourist, said. The hotel’s minority shareholders who own 8.5 percent stake, however, suppose that the asset was undervalued thee-fold estimating the hotel’s worth at $350 million.
Andrey Voskresensky
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 15, 2006
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