BAA sells its stake in real estate company APP to UK Company Segro for £244 million pounds

UK airport operator BAA, a Ferrovial subsidiary, today announced the sale of its stake in Airport Property Partnership (APP) to UK company Segro for £244 million pounds (approximately 280 million euro). The sale includes 18 buildings, principally warehouses and cargo assets in the environs of Heathrow, Stansted, Edinburgh and Gatwick airports with a total built area of approximately 380,000 square metres. The transaction is part of the company's strategy of divesting non-strategic assets. In 2008, the company sold 33 properties to The Arora Family Trust for 309 million pounds. Ferrovial´s capital gain net of transaction costs is estimated to amount to 24.5 million euro. APP is owned 50% each by BAA and Aviva Fund Management Limited. The deal, which requires approval by the competent European authorities, will foreseeably be completed in mid June. Nicolás Villén, CEO of Ferrovial Aeropuertos, emphasized that the deal represents BAA's complete divestment of real estate assets: "The company is focused on improving services to passengers. To that end, we are undertaking an ambitious investment program, amounting to 4.8 billion pounds over five years at Heathrow alone. Once the plan is completed, 70% of passengers will be using new terminals and 30% will be using fully refurbished terminals." BAA owns six airports in the UK (Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton) and one in Italy (Naples). BAA's airports handled a total of 112 million passengers in 2009.