Through its subsidiary Aena Desarrollo Internacional and with Bank of America Merrill Lynch as the financial advisor, Aena has been awarded the concession for the Northeast Brazil airport group consisting of Recife, Maceió, Aracajú, Campina Grande, João Pessoa and Juazeiro do Norte airports for a term of 30 years with the possibility of another five.
The Northeast airport group had traffic coming to more than 13 million passengers in 2018, 6.5% of total Brazilian traffic. Specifically, Recife airport is eighth in Brazil by total passenger traffic and fifth by international passenger traffic.
The price of the award comes to 1,900 million Brazilian Reals, approximately 437.5 million euros, and is the outcome of the public auction conducted today, Friday, on the Sao Paulo stock exchange.
The largest international transaction and cornerstone of the Strategic Plan
The award of the Northeast Brazil airport group is the largest international growth transaction in Aena’s history. The company already has a presence in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica. The transaction is also the first in which Aena will take direct and exclusive control of the six airports.
This award is part of the objectives of Aena’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 which sets internationalisation as one of its cornerstones.
Furthermore, the inclusion of these six airports in Aena’s network consolidates the company’s global leadership as an airport operator by helping to enhance the synergies of its network with the Madrid and Barcelona hub airports as well as with the Latin American airports in which Aena has a stake in Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica.
In the coming days Aena will start all the administrative procedures required to formalise the concession and which may take as long as until August to complete. After the transition period envisaged in the bidding documents, the Northeast airports will begin to be managed during the last quarter by the concession company to be set up for this purpose and which will be entirely owned by Aena Desarrollo Internacional.
About Aena Internacional
Aena currently has a presence in 17 airports outside Spain (12 in Mexico, two in Colombia, two in Jamaica and one in the United Kingdom). It also provides consulting services on a highly selective basis to strategic customers such as Empresa Cubana de Aeropuertos (ECASA).
In the United Kingdom Aena is the controlling shareholder of London Luton Airport as the owner of 51% of its stock.
In Mexico Aena has a stake in Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (GAP), which operates 12 airports in the country, via Aeropuertos Mexicanos del Pacífico (AMP). AMP is also GAP’s strategic partner through a 17.4% shareholding. GAP owns the whole of Desarrollo de Concesiones Aeroportuarias, S.L. (DCA) which in turn has a 74.5% holding in MBJ Airports Limited, the operator of Montego Bay Airport in Jamaica. In addition and as of October 2019, GAP will take control of the operation and management of Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston after winning the Jamaican Government's concession for a term of 25 years.
Aena Internacional operates in Colombia at two airports: Cali, which is run by Aerocali S.A. in which Aena Internacional has a 50% stake, and Cartagena de Indias, which is run by Sociedad Aeroportuaria de la Costa S.A. (SACSA) in which Aena Internacional has a 37.89% shareholding as an operating partner