Hanwha Investments – new entrant Korean investor adds UK’s Edinburgh airport to its portfolio

There is a small number of investors into airports in South Korea, the main one being Incheon International Airport Corporation, which has its fingers in several pies.

It is pertinent to ask if they might soon be joined by the Hanwha Corporation, and specifically its Investment & Securities division, which in short time has taken small stakes in London Gatwick Airport, the UK's second busiest, and latterly Edinburgh, the sixth busiest.

In both cases those stakes were taken from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which continues to scale down its interests in the sector, at least in some parts of the world, while it is being taken over by BlackRock.

The other common denominator here is VINCI Airports, which has also acquired equity from GIP at London Gatwick and Edinburgh in the past few years, but on a much larger scale, taking operational control of both.

Hanwha is a multi-sector, multinational conglomerate, whose many divisions have the ability to cross-support each other. That could well be a benefit to VINCI as it continues on its path towards global domination.

On the other hand, Hanwha may choose to remain a small-scale investor, where it perceives short, mid and long term value, and both these airports are in that category.

Time will tell, but the betting is that Hanwha will be expanding sooner rather than later.