Potential sale of UK airport group AGS – put on hold by UK General Election?

It seems a long time ago that the British Airports Authority was privatised, during the Margaret Thatcher prime ministerial years, and that prompted a row about foreign ownership of key assets that never went away.

But over time, some of those original foreign firms have backed away, including Ferrovial, which was the largest shareholder in BAA plc and subsequently of London Heathrow Airport as the BAA was broken up.

It also became a 50% shareholder in three ex-BAA airports at Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton, as AGS Airports, when they were hived off, along with Macquarie.

Now there are pointers that both Macquarie and Ferrovial are investigating the benefits of sharing their holdings in AGS.

The UK has all but recovered from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but each of these airports seems to have individual issues of its own, which are holding them back and preventing a full recovery. They are examined in this report.

For now, their sale, in whole or part, has probably been put on the back burner consequent to the announcement of the UK General Election on 04-Jul-2024.

That election will be critical to all investors in UK airports.