Gatwick is the UK's second-busiest airport with 45.7 million passengers in 2018. Image: © Jeffrey Milstein
The acquisition of Ivy Topco Ltd, a Cayman Islands-based holding company that has indirect control of London's Gatwick Airport, by VINCI Airports, a subsidiary of French group VINCI has been approved by the European Commission under the European Merger Regulation.
The Commission came to the conclusion that the proposed acquisition gave no cause for competition concerns due to the limited overlap between the other trading activities of the merging parties. Normal merger control procedure was used to examine the transaction.
VINCI Airports maintains and operates airports all over the world in a number of countries including France, Portugal, Serbia, Cambodia, Brazil and the US. Gatwick will be the group's first UK-based airport. Gatwick is the world's second-busiest single runway airport and the addition of a major London hub to the French company's portfolio is being seen as a big feather in the cap.
The £2.9-billion (€3.3-billion) deal was announced in late December 2018. VINCI agreed to purchase a 50.01% stake in the airport from a group of investors including sovereign wealth funds in Australia and United Arab Emirates. The remaining 49.99% will continue to be managed by existing shareholder Global Infrastructure Partners.
In 2018, Gatwick Airport saw 45.7 million passengers pass through. The airport has come under pressure recently due to intensification of competition from other London airports. Despite losing out to Heathrow, the busiest airport in Europe, in winning government backing for construction of a new runway, as well as having its operations halted following the sighting of drones around the runway, Gatwick has allocated £1.11-billion (€1.3-billion) for plans to expand its two terminals in the next five years. The airport is budget airline EasyJet's biggest base and the focus for long-haul British Airways flights.
Since the airport was bought by Global Infrastructure Partners in 2009, it has more than trebled in value, largely as a consequence of the boom in low-cost travel and tourism.
Following the initial sale agreement, Nicolas Notebaert, President of VINCI Airports said: “Creating synergies and sharing best practices being at the core of our values, the whole VINCI Airports network will benefit from Gatwick Airport’s world-class management and operational excellence, which has allowed it to deliver strong and steady growth in a very constrained environment. As Gatwick’s new industrial partner, VINCI Airports will support and encourage growth of traffic, operational efficiency and leverage its international expertise in the development of commercial activities to further improve passenger satisfaction and experience.”
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