Saudi PIF and Ardian to buy 25% stake in Heathrow airport for £2.4bn

Saudi PIF and Ardian to buy 25% stake in Heathrow airport for £2.4bn

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Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is taking a £1bn stake in London’s Heathrow airport as the infrastructure group Ferrovial offloads shares in the UK travel hub it has owned for 17 years.

Ferrovial, which shifted its head office from Madrid to Amsterdam this year, late on Tuesday said it was selling its 25 per cent stake in the airport’s parent company for £2.4bn.

In the transaction, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will acquire 10 per cent of the shares in the company and Ardian, one of Europe’s largest private equity groups, will purchase 15 per cent.

The deal marks the end of a chapter for Heathrow that began amid drama and controversy in 2006 when Ferrovial launched a successful hostile bid for BAA, the UK airports operator.

More recently Ferrovial executives had privately grown frustrated at the regulatory landscape after Heathrow was forced to cut its landing chargesby almost a fifth following a bitter dispute with its airline customers.

The airport has remained lossmaking this year partly because of the higher cost of servicing its significant debt burden following rises in interest rates.

Luke Bugeja, chief executive of Ferrovial Airports, said the company