Edinburgh or Glasgow airport for sale as Ferrovial dilutes

The Competition Commission has ordered BAA to begin the process of selling one of its Scottish airports, bringing forward an auction first ordered two-and-a-half years ago.  The sale of either Glasgow or Edinburgh will now precede any possible disposal of Stansted, leaving BAA with five airports: Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Aberdeen, and one other.

Which of the two it decides to dispose of is still not known although most industry experts expect it to be Glasgow which has lagged behind in terms of passenger numbers in recent years.

In another move Ferrovial, the Spanish majority shareholder in BAA, has sold 5.9% of its shares to investment group Alinda Capital Partners for €325m, (over) valuing the airport group at US$5.9m.  What this does do is reduce the Ferrovial holding to less than 50%, with various financial and legal implications and reduces the overall BAA debt with Ferrovial Chief Executive Iñigo Meirás Amusco saying that the company had no intention of diluting further, the move “cosmetic”. www.baa.com

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