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SAO PAULO, April 7 (Reuters) – Brazil on Wednesday auctioned 22 airports, raising 3.3 billion reais ($593.11 million), with the largest group of airports won by infrastructure company CCR , part of a wave of privatizations that the government is pushing.
“At the end of the day, the proposals presented here mean there is trust in our country,” said Brazil’s infrastructure minister Tarcisio de Freitas after the auction ended.
Brazil is auctioning airports as the air travel industry undergoes one of its worst crisis in history. The pandemic brought air travel to a standstill last year and while it has been recovering in developed countries like the United States, flight demand in Brazil has been weakened recently by a brutal second wave.
Brazilian infrastructure company CCR won licenses to operate the two largest blocks of airports, including the airport of the southern city of Curitiba.
The auction raised a similar amount of money as a previous airport auction in 2019, when the auction of a single group of airports in Brazil’s northeast raised $500 million.
CCR will operate 15 airports, nine in the southern region, for which it bid 2.13 billion reais ($382 million), and six in Brazil’s central region, with a 754 million reais ($135 million)bid for the operating licenses.
France’s Vinci Airports agreed to pay 420 million reais ($75.3 million) to operate seven airports in the northern region.
$1 = 5.5800 reais $1 = 5.5639 reais Reporting by Aluisio Alves and Alberto Alerigi Jr Editing by Marguerita Choy
