Airports poised for £1bn sale

Aberdeen and Glasgow airports look set to fall back into the hands of their former Spanish parent group in a deal worth up to £1 billion.

Aberdeen Airport looks to be heading back to the hands of its former parent group Ferrovial. Picture: Kevin Emslie

Ferrovial, which paid £10.6bn for BAA at the top of the market in 2006, remains a 25 per cent shareholder in the now-renamed Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH). It is now understood to have teamed up with Macquarie, the Australian investment group, to buy the two Scottish assets, along with Southampton airport.

The sale of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton will see HAH focus on Heathrow, which is the world’s busiest airport for international flights.

BAA, which changed its name to HAH two years ago, sold Gatwick for £1.5bn in 2009 to Global Infrastructure Partners, which went on to buy Edinburgh in 2012 for £807 million. Stansted was sold last year for £1.5bn to the Manchester Airport Group.