Maquarie gobbles up more of Sydney airport

By NZPA

Tuesday 20th March 2007

Macquarie Airports (MAp) now owns the lion's share of Sydney Airport, today officially completing the purchase of a further 15.1% stake in the property.

The move takes MAp's overall stake to 70.9%.

MAp announced on February 27 it would exercise a call option over Ferrovial Infrastructure SA's 20.9% stake in the nation's largest airport.

With other investors exercising their pre-emptive rights, MAp ended up netting an extra 15.1% of the airport for $A663 million ($NZ764 million).

The airport investment fund also revealed traffic increased at most of its airports in February, compared with the corresponding period last year.

At MAp's majority owned Sydney, Brussels and Copenhagen airports, traffic increased by seven%, 2.3% and 0.6% respectively.

Rome Airport, where MAp is reportedly considering selling its $A844 million stake, was particularly impressive, with growth of 7.8%.

"Sydney Airport and Rome Airports showed strong growth during February," said MAp chief, Kerrie Mather.

"A number of our European airports were impacted by weather-related disruptions during February," she said.

"Copenhagen in particular was negatively impacted, with traffic 0.6% lower than the previous corresponding period, due to five days of bad weather which led to the cancellation of approximately 800 flights."

Traffic at the remaining two airports where MAp has a minority stake, Birmingham and Bristol airports, declined by three% and 3.6%, respectively.

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