ATU Duty Free, the Turkish operator of duty free shops in 5 Tunisian airports, continues to suffer losses since Q4 2014 when it won the contract in Tunisia , where tourism and the travel industry are heavily affected by terrorism.
The relevant contract negatively impacted on the overall margins of the company, according to TAV Airports the parent company which explains that “this is not surprising since in the two Tunisian airports operated by ATU, Monastir and Enfidha, the traffic was down -58% in 2015.
While TAV Airports has a 50% stake in ATU, the other 50% is held by Unifree of which Gebr. Heinemann is a majority shareholder.
The latter had announced last summer that it was in talks with the Tunisian Airport Authority about the contract on the five Tunisian airports, “given the new environment.”
