Airport IPOs: Tricky takeoff for European airports

European airport IPOs and secondary share offerings are keeping equity capital markets teams busy. Vendors hope to raise up to e20 billion from selling shares in airports in the next few years. But the upcoming privatizations of Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and Milan's Società Esercizi Aeroportuali airport authority, along with a secondary offering by Unique, the manager of Zurich Kloten, seem set for a rough ride as local and political issues put a damper on investor enthusiasm.

Signs that trouble lies ahead for share offerings in European airports became evident with the less than spectacular performance of the initial public offering for Frankfurt’s airport operator Fraport last month – one of Germany’s biggest offerings this year.

The lead banks, Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, were forced to cut the indicative price for the issue to between e32 and e37, far below the e39 to e47 that they had been hoping to fetch for the near 30% stake.

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