MADRID: Spain announced it will sell a 49-percent stake in state-owned airport operator AENA, taking advantage of a renewed optimism on financial markets to raise billions of euros.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government approved the long-delayed sale of a stake, reportedly worth nearly €2.5bn ($3.4bn), in one of the world’s largest airport managers.
Plans for a partial privatisation of AENA were first revealed by the former Socialist government in 2011, but they had to be delayed as investors struggled to find the money on financial markets worried about Spain’s debt crisis. Spain’s stock market has climbed by about 12 percent so far this year, however, as investors are lured by the prospect of a gradual recovery since the economy emerged in mid-2013 from five years of stop-start recession.
AENA, which runs 46 airports and two heliports in Spain and another 15 airports abroad, most in Mexico, is worth “easily” €16bn, its President Jose Manuel Vargas told leading daily El Pais in an interview last week, basing his estimate on the value of similar airport assets abroad.
AENA carries a debt of more than €11bn, however, which would have to be subtracted from the €16bn valuation, he told the paper.
The resulting net estimate of AENA’s value is €5bn, of which 49 percent would be €2.45bn, the paper said, describing it as the biggest Spanish privatisation in 15 years.
“Today we approved the launch of the operation,” the minister for public works, Ana Pastor, told a news conference after the ministerial meeting put a rubber stamp on the deal.
Initially, a 21-percent stake in AENA would be placed with private investors, after which a 28-percent stake would be floated to the public, she said.AFP
