Breaking News – BAA £10bn takeover deal imminent
Airports operator BAA is about to sell itself to an overseas company in a £10bn deal, the BBC has learned.
Directors of the firm have been carrying out a secret auction of the firm between two bidders.
Spanish group Ferrovial and a consortium led by US investment bank Goldman Sachs have been battling it out for Heathrow Airport owner.
Both bidders are believed to have offered more than 940p per share for the group.
BAA, which operates airports handling 63% of all air passengers entering or leaving the UK, has until now been bitterly resisting being taken over, according to BBC’s business editor Robert Peston.
Ferrovial made a hostile approach to the company three months ago.
Goldman Sachs also stirred up controversy when it attempted to buy the business rather than acting in its more customary role as an adviser.
Even before Monday night’s decision by BAA to sell, the future of the airport group had become uncertain.
At the end of last month, the Office of Fair Trading, the competition watchdog, announced that it might examine whether BAA’s dominance as an airport operator was against the public interest.
BAA’s debt will increase greatly under the ownership of either Goldman or Ferrovial.
However both bidding groups insist that the costs of servicing this debt would not lead to them cutting hugely expensive investments being made by BAA – such as the construction of Terminal 5 at Heathrow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5050626.stm
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