The Latvian parliament (Saeima) has formally approved German investor Ralf-Dieter Montag-Girmes' EUR52 million (USD57.2 million) bid for a 20% stake in airBaltic (BT, Riga). The move paves the way for government, as a shareholder, to extend an EUR80 million (USD88 million) loan via the country's State Treasury to the carrier.
The return to positive equity will allow Air Baltic to borrow from money markets to help finance an order for thirteen A220-300s from Bombardier Aerospace (BBA, Montréal Trudeau).
As part of the conditions for its acceptance, a number of alterations have been made to the original proposal wherein twenty controversial points were removed while new clauses were added.
Owing to public concerns about Montag-Girmes' purported links to Russian business and the possibility of an order for SSJ 100/95s from Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (Zhukovsky), the Saeima insisted that Air Baltic and its affiliated companies be 'prohibited from purchasing, leasing or otherwise utilizing equipment produced by military industrial complexes and their affiliates subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union or the international community and ratified by Latvia.'
