The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund (OTPP) further shakes up the European airport market. The Canadian firm has decided to highlight its investments in the airports of Birmingham, Bristol and London City, in the United Kingdom, Brussels, in Belgium, and Copenhagen, in Denmark.
The market values the five infrastructures at around 12,000 million euros and the OTPP shares, which range between 25% and 70%, would reach a price of more than 4,000 million. The operation could attract Aena, which has tried without luck to take over the airports of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton, in the United Kingdom.
OTPP has begun negotiations in a first phase with the minority shareholders of the airports, by virtue of the preferential rights contemplated in the shareholding agreements, according to ‘Sunday Times’. Now, divestment could open up to the market. Not in vain, minorities could also choose to take advantage of the sale of the Canadian pension fund to exercise their rights and add their shares to potential transactions.
OTPP wants to sell its stakes in these airports in the heat of the recovery that traffic has experienced after the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It would follow in the footsteps of other industrial groups and funds that have transferred their positions in airports in recent months, especially in the United Kingdom.
Specifically, last week Ferrovial and the Australian fund Macquarie agreed to transfer 100% (50% each) of AGS, the concessionaire that operates the Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports. AviAlliance, controlled by the Canadian pension fund PSP, bought the company, valued at 1.84 billion euros.
Months ago, the French multinational Vinci acquired 50.01% of Edinburgh airport from the Singapore GIP fund for almost 1.5 billion euros.
And this year the sale by Ferrovial and several partners of 37.62% of Heathrow airport in London to the French fund Ardian and the Saudi Arabian sovereign fund PIF was also completed. The amount of this operation, which will presumably close in December, is close to 3.9 billion euros.
Aena participated in the first two processes, which has focused its international growth on the United Kingdom, where Luton, in London, operates. The airport manager, as the largest operator in the world, will observe the new OTPP movement. It is in its DNA to take majority stakes that allow it to manage the infrastructure, so we will have to wait for the evolution of the operation to gauge the real interest of the company chaired by Maurici Lucena.
OTPP will have to clarify the scope of the divestment in the coming weeks. In the case of a single sale and due to its participations, the operation would fit better in a fund than in an industrial group like Aena. If, on the other hand, the sale is split into pieces and/or minority shareholders are added, the attractiveness for managers would expand.
Among the minority shareholders that accompany OTPP in the airports are, depending on the asset, international firms such as APG, QIC, Swiss Life, TCorp, ART and StepStone or public institutions such as the states of Belgium and Denmark, among others.
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