Axa PE and Aena acquire London Luton Airport

Ellie Pullen
01 August 2013

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Axa Private Equity, via its third infrastructure fund and alongside Spanish airport operator Aena, has acquired London Luton Airport from TBI, a company owned by CVC-backed Abertis, for ТЃ394.4m.

Luton airport's holding company, TBI, is currently 90% owned by Abertis and 10% owned by Aena. Aena will hold a 51% stake in the newco created by the two parties for the acquisition, while Axa will acquire the remaining 49%.

Axa will make its purchase via its third infrastructure vehicle, Axa Infrastructure Fund III, which closed in March on €1.75bn. Aena will finance the acquisition of its stake in Luton airport via the sale of minority stakes currently held in a number of international airports, as well as existing credit lines. The Spanish airport operator will not take out any additional loans for the acquisition and, according to the business, its EBITDA will improve by approximately €46m following the purchase.

Luton airport's vendor, Abertis, was acquired by CVC in August 2010. According to unquote" data, the acquisition of the infrastructure company was valued at €3bn, and a lending syndicate comprising Banco Santander, La Caixa, Mediobanca and Société Générale provided €1.5bn in debt. CVC acquired a 25.8% stake in the business in return for its investment.

According to Luton's website, Abertis invested €676m to acquire the airport concession in January 2005. Prior to this, Barclays Private Equity and the Barclays UK Infrastructure Fund owned the concession until March 2001, when TBI became a majority shareholder.

Company
London Luton Airport opened in 1938. The airport employs 500 staff directly and 8,000 staff indirectly. For 2012, Luton recorded turnover of £118m as well as an EBITDA of £36.2m.

Luton is the UK's fifth largest airport in terms of passenger numbers, handling 9.6 million passengers in 2012. It offers flights to 90 international destinations.

People
Dominique Senequier is the chief executive of Axa, while Mathias Burghardt is the head of infrastructure at the firm. Glyn Jones is the managing director of London Luton Airport Operations. Jose Manuel Vargas is Aena's executive chairman.