Remember TBI, the British property group which bought Belfast International Airport for £107 million two years ago, making the management team multimillionaires, and paid an average of £96,000 to the 200 airport staff who owned a large chunk of the company.
The size of that deal generated a lot of heat, as it raised serious questions about why the airport was sold to the venture capital-backed management team for £33 million two years previously. The three members of the MBO, Mr Jim Dornan, Mr Greg Hamill and Mr James Mairs made a £6.4 million killing on the sale while a host of venture capital groups, including our own ACT, also had the champagne corks popping on the profit they made.
TBI's results this week show, however, that even paying £107 million, it got a good deal from Belfast International Airport. The airport was the biggest contributor to operating profits of £17.6 million from its airports division - TBI also owns Cardiff, Orlando and Stockholm Skanska airports.
TBI managed to squeeze more out of Belfast with operating profits at the airport up 17 per cent even though passenger numbers grew by just 10 per cent.
Belfast Airport was a good deal for TBI and a wonderful deal for the MBO group. The only loser was the British taxpayer who sold a fine asset off for a song and gave privatisation (at least in Northern Ireland) a bad name.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)