Brazil’s CCR to divest its airport assets, while seeking other opportunities in LatinAm and beyond

Brazil's CCR, an operator of toll roads with other interests (such as airports) was, as recently as two years ago, seeking to grow its portfolio of airports under concession, the majority of which are in Brazil.

But now it is looking to offload some, or even all, of those concessions, wholly or partially, along with investments in the urban mobility business, as it seeks to relieve debt and to expand further in the profitable toll road sector.

At the same time, CCR is not averse to locating other airport investment opportunities in Latin America or even further afield.

Its aversion to its current portfolio and its prospects seems to be driven by the acknowledgement that its airport market is fragmented, and requires consolidation, and that even as a recognised Brazilian company of some gravitas it does not have a major gateway airport in any of the big three Brazilian city-regions to boast.

Lining up to acquire those assets, wholly or partly, are companies like Flughafen Zürich and VINCI, which both have existing Brazilian airport assets; and indeed, the former is already the joint operator of Belo Horizonte Confins (Tancredo Neves) Airport, within the BH Airport consortium with CCR.

The interesting thing here is whether another operator will enter the fray, and even more so, if any of the consortiums that formed to bid for smaller groups of airports in the latter stages of the formal concession tranches between 2012 and 2024 will step up to the plate to confront and take on the industry's big players.