Vinci Compass – a new investor with an old name influencing future Brazilian airport privatisation

Over the 13 years of the airport concession by auction programme in Brazil the one airport that has never been privatised is Rio de Janeiro's Santos Dumont; which is essentially a domestic facility. Indeed that still is the case, and one of the main reasons is - that it was at one time the only airport actually making any money for the state operator Infraero, once the auction programme got seriously under way.

Now a second reason has arisen.

As a state facility it can be told what to do, and what it was required to do was to cap movements and passenger numbers as a way of artificially inflating both at the Galeão airport - the main international gateway to Rio which, for various reasons, had fallen on hard times.

That plan, brought into play by President 'Lula', since early in 2023, has worked, thereby enabling Galeão to be reconcessioned as a going concern. That procedure is expected to take place by Mar-2026.

In the meantime, there is a new kid on the block - Vinci Compass, a Brazilian asset manager and speculator that has no connection to France's VINCI Airports (which itself does have airport assets in Brazil).

Vinci Compass has no experience specifically of the airport sector, but plenty of infrastructure familiarity generally. It has acquired substantial equity from Singapore's Changi Airports International, a founder concessionaire investor, and will bid for Infraero's entire 49% stake when it comes up for grabs next year.

If successful, it would dominate a Brazilian airport concession like never before, and one that is close to its heart as a Rio de Janeiro-based company.

That has all sorts of implications for other concessioned airports, as Infraero continues its winding-down policy as an airport investor at this level.

It also begs the question: now that its job is done to rescue Galeão - should Santos Dumont now be privatised as well, and a line drawn under the active concession procedure, long dubbed as a soap opera, which has pretty well completed its task?