Airport Finance and Privatisation: CAPA's Review of the Year 2013 - Part 1

Earlier this year, CAPA established its Global Airport Investors Database. As the Database approaches its 500th corporate entry, it is an appropriate moment to examine the trends in airport privatisation and financing that have influenced the content of that database in 2013, a year when the number of deals at best remained stable but the number of participants in investment continued to grow, despite some 'retirements'.

As in the previous year, 2013 witnessed relatively few airport M&A transactions involving secondary and tertiary level airports, but with some significant ones occurring at the primary level. Indeed, at this level, in aviation and other transport sectors such as ports and roads in aggregate, the number of deals rose close to record levels.

The first half of 2013 saw global deals of infrastructure assets worth USD16.6 billion, and by the end of the third quarter this figure had risen to USD23.5 billion, which already exceeds total annual deal values for every year since 2008. The majority of assets being acquired in 2013 have been either in Europe or Asia.