Finnish investors to buy Helsinki Arena from sanctioned Russians

By Essi Lehto and Anne Kauranen

HELSINKI (Reuters) -A group of Finnish investors have agreed to buy Finland's flagship sports and events venue from its sanctions-hit Russian owners after the city of Helsinki threatened a forced takeover.

The Helsinki Arena, a major concert venue and previously the prime stage for Finland's favourite sport ice hockey, has stood idle for two years since sanctions were imposed on Russian investors following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Helsinki said last year that Russian-Finnish energy billionaire Gennady Timchenko and Roman Rotenberg, scion of the powerful Rotenberg family, would face expropriation unless they voluntarily sold the arena.

The capital city initiated a forced takeover on Monday and a deal was announced by the Finnish Foreign Ministry the next day.

The Finnish buyers, grouped under Trevian Asset Management Ltd and led by Heikki Viitikko, a previous ice hockey club owner, said it took them two years to negotiate the deal with lawyers working for the Russian owners.

"Yesterday, we were finally able to sign the deeds," Trevian Chief Executive Reima Sodervall told Reuters, adding that the deal would still require an exceptional permit from the European Union to be approved because of the sanctions.

"We will pay a market price," Sodervall said when asked to comment on what the consortium had paid for the arena, adding there had been also other bidders.

Finland's largest daily Helsingin Sanomat wrote, citing unnamed sources, that the price to be paid would be "at least 60 million euros ($63.7 million)".

The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF), of which Rotenberg is vice president, did not respond to a request for comment.

Volga Group, which is controlled by Timchenko, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The city board had said expropriation was necessary to stop the venue from deteriorating during the cold winter months and to allow Helsinki to cater to large international events again.

Helsinki estimated last year that up to 400 million euros ($425 million) of annual income was being lost for hotels, restaurants and other businesses while the arena was idle.

All of Timchenko's holdings in the EU have been frozen, while Rotenberg is the target of U.S. sanctions issued against his father Boris and uncle Arkadiy and their families for their close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

($1 = 0.9423 euros)

(Reporting by Essi Lehto and Anne Kauranen in Helsinki, additional reporting by Alexander Marrow and Gleb Stolyarov; editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Heavens and Alexander Smith)