Aer Rianta has said it is interested in joining a consortium to bid for the 49 per cent stake in Hamburg Airport, which is being sold off by the city of Hamburg and the German federal government.
Aer Rianta already has stakes in Birmingham Airport in Britain and Dusseldorf Airport in Germany, and has made no secret of its wish to expand its international operations in airport management and duty-free shops.
A spokesman for Aer Rianta said the Hamburg proposal was at a very early stage and no bids had yet been lodged. He said Aer Rianta's partner at Dusseldorf, the German engineering group Hochtief, had lodged a formal expression of interest in acquiring the minority stake in Hamburg.
Aer Rianta has told Hochtief of its interest in becoming involved and talks between the two groups on lodging a formal bid are now under way.
If Aer Rianta does join the Hochtief consortium in bidding for the stake, it will face stiff competition from other consortiums. Aeroports de Paris, project management group ECE and a subsidiary of HypoVereinsbank makes up one group, while another includes Frankfurt Airport and Nordeutsche Landesbank.
Aer Rianta's potential bid partner, Hochtief, has recently been involved in a tender to build a €3 billion (£2.4 billion) extension to Berlin Airport.
Hochtief's successful tender was dismissed by a Berlin court after the Berlin state prosecutor's office began an investigation into fraud allegations relating to the tender, particularly contacts between three senior Hochtief employees and executives involved in the tender process.
Hamburg Airport is one of the bigger secondary airports in Germany - far smaller than Frankfurt, but still handling 9.1 million passengers last year, an increase of 5.4 per cent on the previous year.
Turnover last year was €184 million with pre-tax profits of around €20 million.
At the time those financial figures were revealed, Hamburg Airport's managing director Mr Werner Hauschild said he expected passenger numbers to rise to 13-14 million by 2010.
Aer Rianta's expected involvement is in line with the recommendation by Investment Bank of Ireland and Lehman Brothers on Aer Rianta's future strategy.
Apart from its duty-free operations in eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, Aer Rianta and its partner NatWest Ventures also own 40 per cent of Birmingham Airport, with Aer Rianta having an option to buy out NatWest after a five-year period which expires next year.
Aer Rianta expanded its airport management operations in 1987 when it combined with Hochtief in a successful £135 million bid for 50 per cent of Dusseldorf Airport, Germany's second largest with an annual throughput of more than 15 million passengers.
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