Spanish construction company Ferrovial has received three offers for London’s Gatwick Airport, the head of Ferrovial’s airport division said on Thursday.
UK airport operator BAA, majority owned by Ferrovial, put Gatwick up for sale last year to meet competition concerns.
But analysts warn that scarce debt and a sharp slowdown in passenger numbers will make it difficult to achieve a premium to its regulated asset base (RAB) value of £1.6bn ($2.37bn).
The deadline for submitting second-round bids for Gatwick, Britain’s second-busiest airport, passed on Monday. “There are three offers for Gatwick,” Inigo Meiras said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.
Three bidding groups already involved in the sale process had been expected to lodge offers: Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the fund that owns London City Airport; Lysander Gatwick Investment Group, comprising Citi Infrastructure Partners, Vancouver Airport Services and John Hancock Life Insurance Company; and Manchester Airports Group (MAG), Borealis and Greater Manchester Pension Fund.
A GIP spokesman said the group had bid. A Lysander spokesman said it had submitted a ‘non-binding’ offer on Tuesday – a day after the official deadline. A source familiar with the matter said the third bidder was the MAG consortium.
