British Airways has bought about another three percent of Spanish flag carrier Iberia, taking its stake to 13.15 percent, and will look for chances to buy more shares.
BA said it bought about 28.7 million Iberia shares at an average of US$3.64. At that price, the acquisition would have cost a total of about $105.3 million.
"This purchase reflects the strategic importance we attach to our relationship with Iberia and our continued confidence in its management," said BA chief executive Willie Walsh. "We will consider further opportunities to increase our stake."
Iberia, which made net profit of $511 million last year thanks to its highly profitable Latin American routes, declined to comment on BA's share purchase.
BA, which has a partnership with American Airlines, has long wanted to beef up amid ever fiercer competition. News of its Iberia buy comes days after larger rival Air France-KLM launched a bid for loss-mired Alitalia.
Last year, BA and private equity group TPG looked at buying Iberia, offering an indicative price of $5.6 a share, but they pulled out when savings bank Caja Madrid bought out other shareholders to take its stake to 23 percent.
When BA joined the TPG consortium, it said it would not put any more of its own money into Iberia and ruled out making an independent bid for the company which has a code-sharing deal with BA on flights between Britain and Spain.
Since then, Iberia's shares have lost about a third of their value as the takeover premium evaporated given Caja Madrid's stake-building and the effect of the credit crunch on funding and as higher oil prices threatened airlines' earnings.
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