Pasila arena | The oligarchs who own Helsinki hall are now willing to sell the hall

The former The fate of the Hartwall arena, i.e. the current Helsinki Hall, speaks for itself. Surprisingly, a solution to the stalemate may be found faster than expected.

The Russian owners of Helsinki Hall, the embargoed oligarchs Gennady Timchenko and Roman Rotenberghave now given the arena a sales permit.

The duo owns the voting shares of the arena through Arena Events Oy, which they run.

“Yes, the information is correct. The sale of the arena has been actively negotiated recently – and will continue to be negotiated strictly,” confirms Timtshenko’s Finnish case manager Kai Paananen.

Paananen is on the board of Helsinki Halli Oy, the background company of the arena. According to the trade register, the other actual member of the board is Rotenberg.

“In a way, this is nothing new, because the sale of voting shares was already announced at Helsinki Halli Oy’s annual meeting in November 2022,” Paananen continues.

Timshenko’s and Rotenberg’s desire to sell weakened after the EU designated Russia as a state supporting terrorism at the end of last November. It could mean that, for example, all funds received from Russian oligarchs would be used to support Ukraine.

“During the past year, there have certainly been moments when the negotiations for the sale of the arena have not progressed, but now the situation is different,” says Paananen.

“Of course, the current owners of the arena ultimately decide whether they will sell their shares or not. There is currently no certainty about this, but as said, at the moment, the interests of the owners are to promote trade. And there are plenty of buyers.”

In everything in the silence, however, one additional obstacle has appeared in the way of the intentions to sell the former Hartwall arena, which has not been talked about in public so far.

It has already been known that a possible sale of the arena would require an exception permit from the authorities – in Finland, both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bailiff’s Office.

In addition, permission from the US authorities should be applied for the deal, as Timtshenko and Rotenberg are also on the US sanctions list.

Timshenko is also on the EU and UK sanctions list.

Now, however, the granting of an exemption is no longer in the hands of the Finnish authorities, as the EU sanctions legislation changed at the end of May.

“It is currently not possible to grant an exception in the case in question (Helsinki hall)”, the head of the sanctions team at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pia Sarivaara tells.

“It may be that the deadline can be extended, but that requires an EU-level decision.”

Foreign minister Elina Valtonen (kok) special assistants found out that if the negotiations for the sale of the arena progress, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the will to apply for an extension of the previously valid EU exemption permit.

In practice, this would happen during the preparation of the next sanctions package, apparently during this autumn.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the voluntary sale of the arena owners to be clearly the fastest and best solution to the problem situation.

If it happens, the purchase price would be transferred to the escrow account of the Bailiff’s Office to wait for the time when the sanctions are possibly lifted.

Ministry is also constantly preparing for the option that the Russian owners do not sell the arena. In practice, then, we would be talking about expropriation based on the Expropriation Act.

However, this solution is not desirable, because the process could take up to 1–2 years, including appeal periods.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the selling motives of the Russian owners of the arena could be that their current asset is constantly losing value while the arena remains closed.

The ministry also said that at the end of the summer, they held discussions about trade and the extension of the EU exemption. However, the ministry did not specify whether representatives of potential buyers or sellers or both participated in the discussions.

Last on Monday, MTV Uutiset reported that Helsinki Halli Oy had received payment of its land lease installment due in July to the city of Helsinki. Ilta-Sanomat previously reported that the reason for the rental delay was a Finnish bank, which froze the halliyhto’s payment traffic for about a month.

“We came to an agreement on the issues through negotiations with the bank,” says Paananen, who has been on the US sanctions list since 2015.

“The arena has been well taken care of, but not for fun at all, but precisely so that it would be in as ready a condition as possible at the time of possible trades.”

Energy company Owner of St1 Mika Anttonen has openly stated that he is interested in buying the Helsinki hall. In addition to Anttonen, the arena’s buyer candidates include at least the American event giant ASM Global and the German event group CTS Eventim.

“I know that many Finnish investors have such a concrete desire to buy that we hardly see a situation where the arena would be primarily sold to me. Because of this, I have not been active in the matter,” says Anttonen.

“The situation is still that I am interested in buying the arena if no one else does.”

The Helsinki Hall has been closed since February 2022, when Russia started its war of aggression in Ukraine.