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On October 25, 2017, passengers walk with their luggage towards the departure gates at Sydney International Airport in Australia. The photo was taken on October 25, 2017. Steven Saphore/REUTERS Reuters, July 5 – Sydney Airport Holdings Pty Ltd (SYD.AX) announced on Monday that a group of infrastructure investors has offered a cash buyout of the operator of Australia’s busiest airport for A$22.26 billion ($16.7 billion). IFM Investors, QSuper, and Global Infrastructure Management formed a consortium that offered A$8.25 per share, a 42 percent premium to Sydney Airport’s closing price on Friday, according to the airport operator. Sydney Airport said it was examining the proposal because it was below its pre-pandemic share price. The airport operator’s stock touched an all-time high of A$8.86 in January of last year, before the epidemic caused travel demand to plummet. The firm is Australia’s only publicly traded airport operator, with the country’s other major airports held by infrastructure investment groups. Due to Australia’s mostly closed border, international travel at Sydney Airport was down more than 93 percent in May compared to the same month last year, while domestic traffic was down 39.2 percent. A request for comment from IFM, QSuper, and Global Infrastructure was not immediately returned. Their offer is conditional on UniSuper, which owns a 15% position in the partnership, agreeing to reinvest its equity in the consortium’s vehicle for an equivalent equity stake in the consortium’s vehicle, according to Sydney Airport. UniSuper did not respond to a request for comment right away. Barrenjoey and UBS have been engaged as financial advisers by Sydney Airport. At 2340 GMT on Sunday, shares in Auckland International Airport Ltd (AIA.NZ), the only other listed airport operator in Australasia, were trading nearly 6% higher. (1 Australian dollar = 1.3294 dollars) Soumyajit Saha and Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru and Jamie Freed in Sydney contributed reporting; Kim Coghill and Stephen Coates edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

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