Economic crisis hits airport privatisation, but some momentum regained recently - New CAPA report

In the last six months or so, as the economic downturn has really begun to bite, the prospects for airport privatisation have reduced accordingly. The Chicago Midway deal fell through, the Prague offer has been postponed, and the Gatwick sale descended into near farce as only one consortium was left with a bid still on the table. But the business is resilient as it proved after September 2001 when the IPO on Airports of Thailand, the sale of Sydney Airport and the PPP on the two main (Greek) Cyprus airports were all delayed - they all went through eventually. Despite the credit crunch new investors have continued to emerge and there are still a substantial number of smaller deals at the regional level, especially in emerging countries.