Investment firm Macquarie Group is to take shareholdings in another three UK airports including London City, having recently exited the ownership of three others.
It has agreed to take a majority 55% share in Bristol airport, a 25% stake in London City, and a 26.5% interest in Birmingham airport.
The acquisition will be carried out through an infrastructure fund linked to Macquarie Asset Management.
It will take over the shareholdings from the Canadian investor Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which has held its stakes in Birmingham and Bristol since 2007-08 and London City since 2016.
Terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. The London City transaction has closed already, and those for the other two airports will close by the fourth quarter of this year.
“Each airport has a unique path for growth ahead, and we’re supportive of the management teams’ plans to deliver enhanced customer experiences and more routes to each of the communities they serve,” says Gordon Parsons, Macquarie Asset Management’s senior managing director for Europe.
The company, earlier this year, divested its joint-venture AGS Airports which operates Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton.
“We are confident that [Birmingham, Bristol and London City] will continue to flourish and are pleased to be passing the baton to new investors Macquarie,” says Ontario Teachers’ senior managing director, and head of infrastructure in Europe, Charles Thomazi.
Ontario Teachers has reached a separate agreement to sell its shareholding in Brussels airport’s operator, a company in which it initially invested in 2011.
It will divest the stake to a Flemish public investment company, Participatie Maatschappij Vlaanderen.
“We look forward to continuing our constructive relations with the other shareholders, fully endorsing the vision that is before us today for the further economic development of the airport,” says PMV general manager Michael Casselman.
