New Candidates Emerge for Domodedovo Airport Purchase
The airport«s assets were transferred to state ownership in the previous year.
Today, January 29, a repeat auction is being held for the sale of the nationalized Domodedovo Airport. Representatives of Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo have expressed interest in buying the airport«s assets.
For now, the GIS Torgi website states in the auction status that the winner is being determined. But a list of applicants who were not admitted to the auction has already appeared. All applications were submitted on the same day—January 22.
Who Wanted to Buy the Airport
The first candidate to buy the airport was Yevgeny Rybalkin—a producer at Radio RBC. In the January 22 broadcast, the hosts said he did this to test the statement by entrepreneur Yevgeny Bogaty (who was the only participant in the first auction) that anyone can participate in the auctions.
“For this, you need a configured electronic signature and a computer to work with electronic trading platforms. The platform accepted my application, but said: ‘We are waiting for your deposit of 26.4 billion rubles (about $264 million at current rates).’ The starting price is 132 billion rubles (about $1.32 billion at current rates), and the bank PSB is not ready to part with the asset for less than 66 billion rubles (about $660 million at current rates),” said Yevgeny.
The second application was submitted by the joint-stock company «Alma». According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE), the company is young: it was registered in 2024. The enterprise is engaged in investments in securities.
In the court database, the company appears in one case as the founder of a periodical print publication—the magazine «O»key«. In September 2025, Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media) filed a lawsuit to invalidate the registration of the mass media outlet. Three months later, the Tagansky Court granted this claim. The details of the case are not specified, and the document is not loaded in the court database.
The company«s application was rejected because it did not pay the deposit of 26.4 billion rubles (about $264 million at current rates) within the required period.
Another candidate for acquiring the airport was LLC «Argana», registered in 2019. The company«s main activity is also investment in securities. In 2024, the company»s net loss amounted to 1.1 million rubles (about $11,000 at current rates). The company is currently in the process of reorganization.
Why Domodedovo Could Not Be Sold Last Time
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alfa-Bank Oleg Sysuev said on Radio RBC that the bank, at the request of Domodedovo«s management, restructured the airport»s debt.
Sysuev clarified that depending on the conditions, Alfa-Bank may consider financing the deal.
“Domodedovo is a property complex with significant collateral, including airport equipment, fuel facilities, buildings, structures, and so on. This is a matter of considering a specific deal,” he explained.
Speaking about why the state could not sell the airport, Oleg Sysuev explained that Domodedovo has also accumulated debts—about 70 billion rubles (about $700 million at current rates).
“Domodedovo, before the decision to transfer it to state ownership, was and is our borrower. And we knew and know this client very well. Until the court decision and the prosecutor«s claim, it very carefully fulfilled all its obligations and serviced the loan. We saw that it can fulfill obligations, including on bonds,” said Oleg Sysuev.
Sysuev believes that the initially stated cost of the airport is greatly inflated, so few would want to acquire Domodedovo«s assets given its debts.
“The worst-case scenario is that when no effective owner is found, the state will struggle with this difficult asset. Its situation, of course, is also due to difficult conditions: a drop in passenger traffic, the behavior of foreign companies, and so on,” he specified.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced that Domodedovo Airport would be put up for auction in January 2026.
Earlier, co-owner of Vnukovo Airport Vitaly Vantsev expressed a desire to become an investor in Domodedovo, which was confiscated for state income in June 2025. The airport«s managing director Andrey Ivanov stated that the company has debts to the tax authorities and employees. Domodedovo»s total debt for the first half of 2024, according to reports, was 69.8 billion rubles (about $698 million at current rates). Ivanov also noted that the air harbor is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Recall that the court proceedings regarding Domodedovo began in January 2025. The Prosecutor General«s Office demanded that transactions involving the former owners—Dmitry Kamenshchik, Valery Kogan, and a number of companies—be declared invalid. The reason was the control over the airport by, allegedly, foreign citizens. Dmitry Kamenshchik reportedly has citizenships of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and Valery Kogan, who headed Domodedovo»s supervisory board, has Israeli citizenship.
We covered the scandal around the airport in more detail in a separate article.
