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The Canadian pension investor PSP has acquired the UK airports operator of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports for £1.5bn from Ferrovial and Macquarie, marking the latest deal in the sector amid a post-pandemic rebound in travel.
The takeover of AGS Airports, established in 2014, by PSP gives the airport group an enterprise value of £1.5bn, including £900mn in equity.
The deal, which is expected to complete by the first quarter of next year, comes just five months after Spanish construction giant Ferrovial agreed a deal to sell the vast majority of its stake in Heathrow airport to private equity group Ardian and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Ferrovial’s growth is increasingly driven by the US, where it has a large toll road business and a stake in New Terminal One at New York’s JFK airport.
There has also been a wider rise in airport deals as the industry has recovered from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
France’s Vinci Airports in June bought Edinburgh Airport, alongside Global Infrastructure Partners.
Nearly all the UK’s leading airports have plans to grow the number of flights they can handle each year, while the annual number of flights in Europe is forecast to grow steadily at 2 per cent per year to 12mn by 2030, according to the region’s air traffic manager Eurocontrol.
Nevertheless, the interest in airports comes as the industry faces growing questions over whether its ambitions to reach net zero by 2050 are achievable.
PSP Investments — which had C$265bn ($190bn) of net assets under management at the end of March — is making the acquisition of AGS via its wholly owned airports group AviAlliance.
The group currently has a portfolio of four airports — Athens, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Puerto Rico’s San Juan — that served 73mn passengers last year.
The airports add to PSP’s UK portfolio of more than £10bn. Its UK investments include majority ownership of Forth Ports, one of the largest port operators in Scotland, and Angel Trains, a leading owner of passenger train carriages which run on the UK rail network.
“We are committed to supporting the airports over the long term to expand their route networks, further improve the passenger experience and implement the airports’ sustainability strategy,” said Gerhard Schroeder, managing director of AviAlliance.