Sale of Luton Airport equity stake by Ardian Infrastructure

Ardian Infrastructure announced on 24th April 2018 that it has agreed to sell its stake in London Luton Airport (the UK’s 5th largest airport) to AMP Capital.

Ardian Infrastructure acquired 49% of London Luton Airport in 2013 and together with partner Aena have invested over £160 million to support the airport’s transformation.

Passenger numbers have increased from 9.7 million in 2013 to 15.8 million in 2017.

Altitude provided comprehensive vendor due diligence to support the sale incorporating traffic, commercial and technical aspects. Our work included:

• Detailed review of the London air traffic market, in depth analysis of demand from Luton Airport’s core and outer catchments, competition with other London airports (including impact of London airport system capacity constraints) and analysis of key airline financial performance.

• Analysis of historic financial performance including aeronautical revenue, non-aeronautical revenue, operating expenditure and EBITDA.

• Identification of drivers of historical financial performance.

• Detailed benchmarking of all aspects of revenues and operating costs against peer airport performance.

• Detailed assessment of capacity for key processes and infrastructure requirements to meet the traffic forecasts.

• Development of long term phased development plan to support the forecast traffic growth.

• Development of long term traffic, aeronautical revenue, non-aeronautical revenue, operating expenditure, EBITDA and capital expenditure forecasts.

• Production of a comprehensive due diligence report.

LLA website news article here