BAA says Stansted could be run for £5m less per year than they did – to raise its price
October 15, 2012 BAA has admitted that anyone else could run Stansted for at least £5m a year less, due to lower mangement costs. The information is disclosed in the “information memorandum” sent to bidders for Stansted, which is valued at around £1bn in August. The document is aimed at getting the best possible price for Stansted but one City source said it was bizarre to now be saying this. Stansted had £141.5m operating costs in its most recent year. Ryanair says the reason for the £5 million drop is that BAA has been lumping in expenses from its other 4 airports – Heathrow, Southampton, Glasgow and Aberdeen. The sale document makes out that another operator could get passenger numbers to bounce back to 24.6m by 2019, from 17.1 million this year. Some of the possible buyers of Stansted are MAG and a consortium led by Australasian investment manager Morrison & Co, Citi Infrastructure Partners, Macquarie and Deutsche Bank’s infrastructure arm, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, JP Morgan and Li Ka-Shing’s CKI . Click here to view full story…
Ryanair rules out Stansted airport bid
10.10.2012 Ryanair has bowed out of the competition to buy Stansted airport after saying that owner BAA had indicated it would not sell the facility to any bidding consortium that included the low-cost carrier. BAA and Ferrovial declined to comment. UK competition authorities would have blocked the airline from taking any more than a 25% stake. Analysts pointed out that any buyer of Stansted would eventually need to work with Ryanair to achieve growth – the airport has seen traffic figures fall by a quarter in the past five years. FT see full story ….
Rival group of Morrison, NZSF and Infratil enters battle for Stansted airport
September 22, 2012 The process of the sale of Stansted is believed to have started. A team that is headed by Morrison & Co, which operates in New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong, is making a bid. The team also includes the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Infratil. The interest of Infratil in Stansted has surprised some industry observers because it is currently trying to sell its two smaller British airports – Prestwick and Manston – which have both lost Infratil a lot of money. Infratil, which runs about £2.5bn of assets, has twice written down Manston and Prestwick in the past two years, with their carrying value almost halving from £70m to £36m today. The two airports lost around £6m last year. The Morrison consortium is believed to have held early talks with Ryanair, and is in competition with Manchester Airports Group, which is in a potential deal with Australia’s Industry Funds Management. And others. The sale is complicated by the Government’s review of airport capacity in the south east, led Sir Howard Davies. Click here to view full story…