Peel Group buys back the 65% of Liverpool airport that it sold in 2010 – now owns 100%
The Peel Group has retaken control of the loss-making Liverpool John Lennon Airport less than 4 years after selling it to Canadian group, Vantage. It has bought the 65% of the airport it sold in June 2010 back from Vantage Airports UK Peel had retained a 35% stake. . The change of ownership is effective immediately and Peel will now become the sole owner of the airport company. Liverpool airport posted a pre-tax loss of £7.1m on turnover of £31.6m in the year to 31 March 2013. In the 2013 accounts, auditor KPMG said the airport faced “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”. Negotiations with banks were ongoing with a 31 March deadline. Vantage hads decided to focus solely on the North American market and is leaving the UK. Vantage had already sold its interest in Doncaster airport. Liverpool has suffered from competition on cheap fares from Manchester. Passenger levels through Liverpool peaked in 2008 at 5.4m and fell to 4.2m in 2013.
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Peel buys back Liverpool airport
24 Apr 2014 (Place, north west )
Peel has retaken control of the loss-making Liverpool John Lennon Airport less than four years after selling to Canadian group Vantage.
The Peel Group said on Thursday it had acquired the 65% it sold in June 2010 in Vantage Airports UK, in which it retained 35%, from Vantage Airport Group. The change of ownership is effective immediately and Peel will now become the sole owner of the airport company.
LJLA posted a pre-tax loss of £7.1m on turnover of £31.6m in the year to 31 March 2013. In the 2013 accounts, auditor KPMG said the airport faced “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”. Negotiations with banks were ongoing with a 31 March deadline. Robin Tudor, head of PR at the airport, said talks with the banks were progressing and he expected a positive conclusion in the coming weeks. He declined to give details of the size of the bank facility or the banks involved.
Tudor said Vantage had decided to focus solely on the North American market and was exiting the UK. Vantage had already sold its interest in Doncaster airport.
Liverpool’s passenger numbers, dominated by easyJet and Ryanair, have suffered from growing competition for low-cost carriers through Manchester and other airports in recent years. Passenger levels through Liverpool peaked in 2008 at 5.4m and fell to 4.2m in 2013, down from 4.5m in 2012. Tudor said the airport was confident of restoring passenger numbers, targeting the charter holiday market among others.
Peel said in a statement: “Over the past four years, under the ownership of Vantage Airport Group, Liverpool JLA has undergone significant improvements and now provides a best in class airport experience for both passengers and airlines. Vantage now wishes to focus on projects that position the company for growth in North America and other markets.
“Peel believes that by investing in JLA, the business can be taken to the next level, attracting new airlines and new services by capitalising on the excellent operational and commercial performance. It will remain business as usual for airport employees, airlines and passengers, with JLA continuing to serve the needs of the travelling public in Merseyside and the North West.
Matthew Thomas, chief executive of Liverpool John Lennon Airport, said: “The Airport is a key project in Peel’s Ocean Gateway programme, which will see £50bn of investment in the North West. As part of one of the region’s largest and most successful organisations, the Airport now enters an exciting period in its development as we work with partners across the City Region to grow services and passenger numbers.”
http://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/archive/15700-peel-buys-back-liverpool-airport.html
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Liverpool John Lennon airport in ownership change
Liverpool John Lennon airport has announced a change to the structure of its ownership.
The Peel Group, which previously held a 35 per cent shareholding in Vantage Airports UK, the current owners of JLA, has reached an agreement to acquire the remaining 65 per cent stake in the business from Vantage Airport Group.
The change of ownership is effective immediately and Peel will now become the sole owner of the Airport Company.
Peel Group said in a statement that by investing in JLA the business can be “taken to the next level”.
Matthew Thomas, CEO of JLA said: “The Airport is a key project in Peel’s Ocean Gateway programme, which will see £50 billion of investment in the North West.
“As part of one of the region’s largest and most successful organisations, the Airport now enters an exciting period in its development as we work with partners across the City Region to grow services and passenger numbers.”
Vantage said it is selling its stake to “focus on projects that position the company for growth in north America and other markets.
http://buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/2422346-liverpool-john-lennon-airport-ownership-change
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. Some earlier news about Liverpool airport:
Liverpool John Lennon Airport aiming to win over 1m people who prefer to fly out of Manchester
January 29, 2014
Liverpool John Lennon Airport wants to win over the 1 million Merseysiders who currently fly from Manchester Airport each year.The loss making airport said it was “absolutely” certain that it will secure new bank banking facilities before the March 31 deadline. The ambition to lure local passengers away from Manchester was part of an overall strategy aimed at restoring passenger growth at Liverpool airport, which lost over 1 million passengers in 2013, compared to 2011. Liverpool airport says it has conducted market research that shows Merseysiders would prefer to fly from Liverpool rather than Manchester, if flights were available. But they are not. “People said they wanted to keep money in the Liverpool economy” (by taking cheap flights abroad to spend their holiday money elsewhere??). In recent years, JLA has lost market share to Manchester as its rival began targeting no-frills airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair that have traditionally been Liverpool’s biggest customers. Liverpool wants more low cost destinations. Their accounts show they made a pre-tax losses of £7.1m in the year to March 2013 and another £6.5m the previous year. Earlier this week, Norwegian Airlines said it was withdrawing its route to Copenhagen.
Click here to view full story…
easyJet 39 dropped routes – many to Spain, some to UK airports such as Liverpool – but added 64 new routes
Date added: May 13, 2013
Airlines constantly monitor the financial performance of individual routes, so if they are not making money on a particular airport pair, it is axed. There is then capacity that can either be used to increase frequency on existing routes, or for a new route. Anna Aero reports that comparing the routes of EasyJet this summer, compared to summer 2012, they have dropped 39 airport pairs, but set up 64 new ones. There have been many cuts in their routes to Spain. The airport to lose the largest number of routes is Madrid (14 routes) and second is Liverpool (5 lost), followed by Barcelona and Dortmund with four each. Of the five dropped Liverpool routes, only one (Malta) is served by easyJet from its nearby base at Manchester. The net result is for the overall number of easyJet flights to increase by 2.2% in August compared to August 2012. Due to more larger planes – the growing number of A320s in the fleet – the total number of EasyJet seats is up 2.8%, while ASKs (Available Seat Kilometres) are up 3.1%, indicating a small increase in average sector (ie journey) length. Click here to view full story…
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Peel Holdings to sell airports (Liverpool, Doncaster and Durham Tees Valley) to fund purchase of ports company?
9th March 2010
It seems likely that Peel Holdings, a private company, intends to sell a majority
stake in its airports division to help fund the £800 million acquisition of Forth
Ports, one of Britain’s biggest port operators. Peel Holdings is fundamentally
a property developer, and has 3 secondary level airports (Doncaster, Durham Tees
Valley, amd Liverpool, as well as a general aviation facility at Manchester City
airport. Two of the airport are in direct competition with the primary level Manchester
Airport. Click here to view full story…
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