Spanish firm eyes up BAA airports
Spain’s Grupo Ferrovial is considering a bid for British airport group BAA but has not yet approached the UK firm about any takeover approach.
BAA operates Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted airports in London; Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen in Scotland, as well as Southampton.
Ferrovial said it was “considering making an offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of BAA”.
BAA said it would make a statement before the end of the day.
Ferrovial said any offer would be in cash and most likely as part of a consortium.
“No approach has yet been made to the board of BAA,” it added.
UK interests
The announcement also said Ferrovial’s considerations were at a preliminary stage and that it did not follow necessarily that any formal offer would be made.
BAA shares soared 20% following the announcement from Ferrovial, which already owns half of Bristol airport and completely owns Belfast City airport.
Meanwhile, Frankfurt airport operator Fraport said it was not interested in acquiring a stake in BAA.
A Fraport spokesman said: “There is no question of taking part in a consortium.”
Government involvement?
In 2003 Grupo Ferrovial acquired the UK engineering firm Amey.
Airport sector analyst Keith Bowman of Hargreaves Lansdown said Ferrovial’s offer had come as “a complete surprise”.
“There is likely to be much deliberation over such a bid and it is almost unthinkable that the UK government would not become involved,” he said.
“What the potential bid does again reaffirm is the significance of so called ‘strategic assets’ as with the current bids for the London Stock Exchange and P&O ports.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4692666.stm
If Kev35 thinks the BBC’s title is too “sensational” feel free to blame me again…
By: Dantheman77 - 8th February 2006 at 23:31
Ahh…I dont think the sale will go through for a number of reasons. 1, The British Govt is still a major shareholder in BAA, owning something like 20% of the company,so there on to a winner with Airport taxes and dividend payments.
2, The deal would be subject to the European mergers and monopolies comission, and even possibly an investigation by the DTI in the uk.
3, i have also heard on some financial programmes and read in the financial pages that BAA shares could possibly be undervalued,this is the kinda thing that would be needed to kick start the share price to reach its proper value
4. It could a fishing exercise from the spanish company. I.E. to boost its own share price, or even to test the market waters and see what happens.
But Answering Flying-Forever’s question….BAA will have to spend alot of money in preparing for a defence for a possible take-over.
Im not sure who the company was…but they spent close to or over £100million in fighting a take-over,which was in lawyers and Stockbrokers fee’s
By: andrewm - 8th February 2006 at 22:18
Or given they have invested in Belfast City after taking ownership, this would be a good thing to help investment in the airports?
By: Flying-forever - 8th February 2006 at 17:23
I really don’t think this is a good idea BAA have owned these airports for years on end and always expanding them like SOU and are going to build GAtes specailly for the the super jumbo A380 they are doing alot and it will be a terrible battle if spain were to strick it wolud be like invading our airports
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February 8, 2006 at 12:43 pm