‘The profit Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg made allows them to invest in the airport reconstruction as planned and to declare dividends. This impressive result must stem from the renovations that have already been introduced and from the increased passenger turnover as well as from the airport’s more expensive services. Investing more in the airport reconstruction right now appears to be impossible, as the company has already come up with a certain plan and investment schedules. Even if more money is invested, things won’t get done faster, there are some objective limitations for this. Which is why the airport’s shareholders probably did the right thing when they chose to distribute a portion of profits among themselves,’ FINAM Investment Company’s analyst Sergey Filchenkov said to UrBC.

In fact, Koltsovo airport’s last AGM resulted in the stockholders’ decision to declare 74,255,776 RUR worth of dividends for 2007, with 248.5 RUR paid per each ordinary share and 497 RUR paid per each preference share. The dividends are to be paid within sixty days of the decision. These dividend figures exceed those for a year earlier by 37.65 times.

However, throughout the year, the airport’s management used to say they had to go for ongoing jet fuel price increases (which, in its turn, made the price of vacations soar) in order to get enough money to renovate the airport.

‘At the same time, the case looks obviously illogical. On the one hand, the company claims to need money for renovation; on the other hand, the net profit is distributed among stockholders rather than invested. This means that the price increases were about making more profit rather than about getting additional investment resources,’ Sergey Filchenkov noted.