St. Petersburg's famous Astoria Hotel to be sold into private hands in October

Author: Edwards Johnson Section: Hotels & Restaurants Guide

Issue: August 2011, Vol. 6, No. 7

Tags: Astoria Hote

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The Sale of a Legend

The St. Petersburg State Property Fund has set the new auction date for the Astoria Hotel sale on Oct. 19, 2011, the Fund’s head, Andrei Stepanenko, said. Recent attempts to sell the famous hotel fell through in May due to lack of buyers. 

According to experts, monitoring the events around the sale, the bid failed because of the high valuation of the hotel, fixed at 2.18bln rubles. But the state officials in charge of the sale had learnt their lessons from past failures and drastically reduced their appetite. Consequently, the new starting price for the October auction will be 1.5bln rubles. The sale of the hotel is part of the city’s privatization program.