Six deals that changed the market in 2006
| Deal type: Airport Development and Investment’s £16.4 billion acquisition of BAA |
It was the deal that had always been seen as impossible to do. Ever since the UK government’s golden share in airports operator BAA (which gave it the option to block any takeover) was ruled illegal by the European Court of Justice in 2003, the company has been a potential target. But the market wisdom was that any takeover would simply be too big and too difficult. “When we started working on the deal it was viewed as a long shot,” admits Philip Robert Tissot, managing director and head of UK investment banking at Citigroup in London. “We knew that other parties had looked at it before but concluded that it was just too big and too difficult.” BAA owns London’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, as well as stakes in other airports in Europe and Australia.
As such, for anyone wanting to invest in the airport sector the company must have looked very tempting.