LONDON GATWICK: December 28, 2018. Vinci Airports, part of the French construction and concession Vinci Group, will become the largest single shareholder in London Gatwick Airport with the purchase of a 50.1 percent stake from current owner Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for £2.9 billion.

Vinci currently manages the development and operations of 45 airports in France, Portugal, UK (Belfast), Sweden, Serbia, Cambodia, Japan, US, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Chile and Brazil. Last year’s annual revenue of €3.2 billion produced consolidated revenue of €1.4 billion.

“Synergies and sharing best practices being at the core of our values, the whole Vinci Airports network will benefit from Gatwick Airport’s world-class management and operational excellence, which has allowed it to deliver strong and steady growth in a very constrained environment,” commented Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of Vinci Concessions and president of Vinci Airports.

The company said the acquisition of a freehold airport property the size of Gatwick was “extremely valuable” and noted the opportunity for further capacity development that included “an innovative potential scheme to further utilise its standby runway”.

For the year ending March 31, 2018 the Gatwick Airport Group reported total revenue of £764.2 million, with an EBITDA of £411.2 million.

Commenting on the change of ownership that will see GIP retain a 49.99 percent shareholding, airport CEO Stewart Wingate said: “Our chairman and I, along with our senior management team, will all remain at Gatwick and look forward to improving services further for our passengers. There will be no changes to the immediate running of Gatwick and we expect the transaction to complete by the middle of next year.”

For the first six months of its financial year ending September 30, 2018 the airport reported a 21.3 percent rise in long-haul connections that resulted in a 21.0 percent growth in airfreight tonnage compared to the same period last year.