The Helsinki arena has been empty since spring 2022, when Russia started a war of aggression against Ukraine.
Professor of international business at the University of Turku Kari Liuhto suspects that the Russian oligarchs who own the Helsinki arena are delaying the sale of the arena on purpose.
– Clearly someone is holding back, and in my opinion that party is in Russia, he says.
They own the majority of the arena through their companies Gennady Timchenko and Roman Rotenberg. Timchenko belongs to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin close circle. The Rotenberg family also has close relations with Putin. Both are on banned lists. The oligarchs also have Finnish citizenship and have lived in the country for a long time.
The arena has been unused for two years. Behind the scenes, according to leaked information, a deal has been made about it for more than a year.
The EU’s December sanctions package was believed to finally bring momentum to the sale of the hall through the voluntary trade or expropriation process it enabled, but even that has not led to a change of owner.
The trade day was reported Ilta-Sanom to be included on February 28, but again the sale was postponed, as the buyers had feared, said MTV news.
Professor Liuhto suspects that the Russian owners might make the situation in Finland difficult directly on the orders of the Kremlin.
– From a business point of view, extending the deal makes no sense, he states.
According to Liuhto, anyone with a business education will understand what the end result is.
– The purchase price received by the sellers is no longer possible to increase. They are playing into someone else’s pocket.
And why would the oligarchs have been given an order from the Kremlin to prolong the creation of the trade?
– The reason is probably general harassment, or an attempt is made to give the impression that Finns’ decision-making can be influenced in some way, Liuhto guesses.
The case manager of the main owner of the second arena, businessman Timchenko Kai Paananen commented to that the claim of deliberately delaying the sale is completely baseless and without a basis in truth. According to him, there has been a lot of wrong information in the public about the store, such as the dates when the store was created.
– The deal is already progressing officially, as I have said before. We will tell you more about it in the near future, says Paananen.
He said last week Ilta-Sanom, that the sale of the arena is progressing and that it is “on the official road”. It was unclear what the phrase meant.
The deadline for voluntary trade is the end of March
Mayor of Helsinki Juhana Vartiainen does not speculate on the motives of the oligarchs who own the hall.
– It is not possible for me to evaluate this, because I have not had any dealings with the owners or their representatives, says Vartiainen.
Mayor Vartiainen also doesn’t know what “official road” means.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ unit responsible for sanctions issues, on the other hand, tells that to date they have not received an exemption application that would indicate that a sale was being made in the hall.
The Helsinki City Council has set the end of this month as the deadline for the implementation of the voluntary trade. Vartiainen repeated to last week that the city will wait until March for credible evidence that the deal will be created.
– Preferably in the form of a deed of sale. If there is no proof of the deal, the city government will decide on further actions, one of which is the expropriation process, says Vartiainen.
He emphasizes that the time limit set for the voluntary sale of the arena has been defined precisely because it would not be possible to extend the sale indefinitely.
The city council will be notified about the hall’s situation on March 28.