Investment Corporation of Dubai to take over Tivat Airport?

The most likely candidate for the acquisition of the busiest airport in Montenegro, the Tivat Airport, is the new owner of the elite nautical-tourism center Porto Montenegro, the Investment Corporation of Dubai, as Vijesti learns unofficially.

The Government of Montenegro and the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs have not provided an answer to Vijesti since July 24 as to whether the ICD is interested in renting the said airport and under what terms.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic announced in late May in Tivat that the state would not let its company Airports of Montenegro (Aerodromi Crne Gore – ACG) take out a favorable loan of EUR 50 million for the much needed reconstruction, modernization and expansion of capacities of the Tivat Airport, by that the Government would offer the airport for a long-term lease to an interested foreign investor.

– Our orientation is towards valorizing ACG, especially the Tivat Airport, though a long-term lease model. Credible global companies are seriously interested in it. At the moment, we are preparing a model in cooperation with the World Bank. I believe that this will be done quickly and that we will be able to present a concrete proposal soon – Markovic said at the time when asked by Vijesti why the Government was putting the brakes on the already agreed and fully prepared project of ACG and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), by which the capacities of the Tivat Airport would be brought up to three million passengers a year.

According to unofficial findings of Vijesti, however, the negotiations between the Montenegrin authorities and representatives of the ICD about the takeover of the Tivat Airport have already progressed far and the new owners of Porto Montenegro are the first in line for the future ownership of the busiest airport in Montenegro. Back in May 2016, when they completed a transaction worth EUR 210 million and bough Porto Montenegro from its former owner Peter Munk and his partners, they announced that it was only the beginning of their plans related to Montenegro.

Namely, the ICD intends to develop Porto Montenegro as an elite destination for the so-called ultra-high-net-worth-individuals, i.e. rich people whose personal property exceeds USD 30 million. The Tivat nautical-tourism center is merely a backbone for their much bigger plans in Montenegro related to air and road transport, real estate projects and projects of development of high tourism. They are therefore very interested in taking over the local airport, which, however, as Vijesti learns from the circles close to the investor, would not be developed in line with the ACG Master Plan, but reduced from an airport oriented primarily towards commercial aviation capable of serving three million passengers a year to serving primarily general aviation – smaller private and business planes belonging to wealthy people, whereas commercial air transport would be minimized. This indirectly means that a large number of workers would be let go and that the development projects of the airport, which would lead to further employments, would be abandoned. Negative effects from the near complete cancellation of commercial air transport to and from Tivat would also be felt by the seaside tourism business, whose clients tend to gravitate towards this airport.

It is in the expansive aviation business of the ICD that the government sees the possibility of solving the issues related to Montenegro Airlines, which has huge financial problems. Namely, the government's strategy is to combine the lease (privatization) of the Tivat Airport with a simultaneous takeover of MA by one of the companies from the ICD's portfolio, which would pose no problem for an airline as strong as Emirates. This way, the Tivat Airport would practically be the price paid by Montenegro for dumping their problematic national airline on the Arabs.

Minister of Transport and Maritime Affairs Osman Nurkovic said for TV Vijesti that he “doesn't know anything about these speculations”, but he also said that the government was considering the option of leasing the Tivat Airport for at least 30 years and that analyses thereof were being carried out.

JP Aerodromi Crne Gore Podgorica

Adriatic Marinas d.o.o. Tivat

Vlada Crne Gore

Ministarstvo pomorstva Crne Gore

Evropska banka za obnovu i razvoj EBRD Podgorica

Montenegro Airlines Podgorica

Tivat Airport

Porto Montenegro

Investment Corporation of Dubai

ICD

Government of Montenegro

Ministry of Transport of Montenegro

Aerodromi Crne Gore

ACG

Dusko Markovic

World Bank

lease of Tivat Airport

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

EBRD

Montenegro Airlines

Emirates

Osman Nurkovic