Abertis sells Belfast International Airport

Spain's Abertis Infraestructuras has agreed to sell airports in Sweden and Northern Ireland together with a management contract at the world's busiest hub in Atlanta to US-based ADC and HAS Airports Worldwide for €284 million.

The deal includes Belfast International and Stockholm Skavsta airports, plus terminal concessions at Orlando Sanford in Florida and the US management business of Abertis’s TBI unit, which includes the Atlanta contract, it said today.

Following the disposal, Barcelona-based Abertis will be left with only London Luton airport among European assets bought via a 90 per cent stake in TBI in 2005, after agreeing to sell a terminal in Cardiff to the Welsh government in March for €61 million.

The company still owns or manages airports in Latin America and Caribbean through DCA, acquired in 2007.

Abertis, which also runs toll roads and provides telecommunications infrastructure, said today’s agreement with ADC and HAS Airports Worldwide reflects a strategy of “continually managing its portfolio to optimize the company’s asset base.”

Buyer ADC and HAS was formed in 2008 by Airport Development Corporation of Canada and Houston Airport System, backed by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension plan.

Based in Houston, ADC and HAS currently has stake in airports in Ecuador and Costa Rica.

The TBI contracts in the US that are being acquired as part of the deal include management of a 28-gate international terminal at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson plus contracts at Raleigh-Durham, Bob Hope airport in California and Middle Georgia Regional Macon Downtown in Georgia.

Abertis will receive 90 per cent of transaction proceeds, with Aena International, its Spanish partner in TBI, getting the rest.

The businesses being offloaded would have contributed about €78 million in revenue this year, the company said.

Abertis’s sale of the TBI assets to ADC and HAS is subject to approval by local authorities.

Bloomberg