Berlin seeks private investors for long-delayed new airport

Berlin is wooing private investors including Macquarie and JP Morgan to take a stake in its much-delayed new international airport, German newspaper Bild reported on Sunday. The investors are to be given confidential details of the airport's business plans so they can make concrete offers, Bild am Sonntag said, without citing sources.

An spokesman for the airport said there were no new developments regarding a possible part-privatisation. He said the company was in a “prenotification phase” with the European Commission, in which it has to demonstrate the potential return on investment for any private investor.

The spokesman referred to a June 18th statement in which the airport said: “This does not, however, prejudge whether FBB [Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg] should be privatised, either in whole or in part.” He declined to comment specifically on speculation as to whether particular potential investors had been contacted.

Spokespeople for Macquarie and JP Morgan were not immediately reachable in Germany.

The €5.1 billion Willy Brandt International airport has been delayed repeatedly by red tape and technical problems, forcing its scheduled opening date to be pushed back from 2012 to 2017. It is jointly owned by the city of Berlin, the state of Brandenburg and Germany’s federal government.

Bild said the owners expected a detailed report by the end of the year on whether a part-privatisation would be worthwhile, adding the federal government wanted to sell its 26 per cent stake once the airport was operational.– (Reuters)