The world’s biggest pension funds and their investments into airports

A previous CAPA report, published in Dec-2022, identified the world's leading sovereign wealth funds and which of them invested in, or at least paid attention to, the airports business. This report turns to pension funds, which collectively have assets similar in scope to SWFs - in other words, a lot of cash.

Like SWFs, the fund managers have been attracted to the traditional security and longevity of airports (although airports have been less secure since the COVID-19 pandemic).

The report looks at the Top 30 pension funds by asset size, out of which 10 have airport interests, meaning they are investors - have been, or have indicated an aspiration to be. And five of the top seven have invested in airports, or tried to.

Those investments are at widely contrasting levels, from small airports in the US aspiring to take on larger rivals to global hubs. Of the 20 that have shown no known interest in the sector, many are in the US, and the changing scene there, with public-private partnership arrangements increasingly funding major airport infrastructure investments, means there may yet be a role for them.