Gatwick, the UK's second-largest airport, has been put up for sale by its owner BAA. The move comes four weeks after the Competition Commission said BAA may have to sell three of its UK airports because of market dominance concerns.
Several firms are said to be interested in buying the London airport, which has been valued at £1.8bn by regulators, with media speculation putting its value at between £2bn - £3bn. Potential bidders include Australian company MacQuarie, Germany's Fraport, and the owners of Manchester Airport, with Virgin said to be plotting a bid in conjunction with a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund.
Last month, the Competition Commission said in an interim ruling that BAA may have to sell three of its seven UK airports. Although the Commission does not release its full report until next year, it added that BAA may need to sell two of its three airports in the South East - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted - and either Glasgow or Edinburgh in Scotland
In a statement, BAA said it had decided to begin the process of selling Gatwick 'immediately'. BAA chief executive Colin Matthews said: 'Gatwick has long been an important and valuable part of BAA and the decision to sell was not taken lightly.'
'We believe that the airport's customers, staff and business will benefit from the earliest possible resolution of current uncertainty. When the Competition Commission published its provisional findings, we said that we would be realistic in our response, though we disagree with the Commission's report and the analysis on which it is founded.'
Mr Matthews told the BBC that the market would set the price that the airport would realise. He also told the BBC that selling the airport was 'the right thing for BAA, for Gatwick, to do'. However, he said BAA will try to keep Stansted (in addition to Heathrow) as a change of ownership could interfere with the airport's expansion.
He said: 'At Stansted, we believe that a change of ownership would interfere with the process of securing planning approval for a second runway, which remains a key feature of Government air transport policy.' |
