Old school and new boy - Macquarie and Ardian continue heavy investment in European airports

European airports of all shapes and sizes, and particularly the 'low-cost' ones, once topped the wish list of not only the traditional financial investment fraternity, but also the start-ups from the surface transport, construction and real estate sectors, all of whom thought they could do a better job than civil servants.

Most of the latter have long since departed for other pastures.

Those days are firmly in the past, and the only activity of any importance going on currently is usually on-sales of freehold ownership and lease concessions, together with the occasional public-private partnership, and there isn't a great deal of action in total; the entrepreneurs have taken their money elsewhere, or just given up altogether.

There were two glimmers of light in 2024 and during 2025, firstly in the form of the return to the fray of Australia's Macquarie Group and its various funds. Macquarie having previously abandoned UK and European airport investments and now returning to some of those UK ones (while admittedly still offloading others).

Macquarie's soon to be 75% ownership of London City Airport is at a level not seen there for two decades.

Secondly is the commitment of the French private equity firm Ardian, spun out of the giant Axa, which is now the majority shareholder by some way at London Heathrow Airport, with numerous important airports privately owned or concessioned in Italy, and now close to acquiring partially the SAVE Group airports, again in Italy and in Belgium, within a consortium.

That acquisition would give Ardian 14 airports in total, and put it broadly in the same class as the all-powerful VINCI Airports - at least, in Europe.

While it is still too early to declare that European airports are back in favour in the investment community, this does demonstrate that they are at least back in the consciousness, their prospects being encouraged by a relatively new financier to the business (from 2011, as Axa Private Equity) and one that is as old as the hills.