BELFAST CITY airport is set to change hands, after Spanish group Ferrovial agreed over the weekend to sell the airport to an ABN Amro investment fund, in the latest of a series of divestments.

The Spanish group, which owns the UK airports operator BAA, said ABN Amro's Global Infrastructure Fund would pay £132.5 million (€164 million) for the airport, which mainly serves passengers between the Northern Ireland capital and the UK and France.

Ferrovial paid £43 million for the facility in 2003, buying it from Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace group. It handles about two million passengers a year.

The Madrid-based company calculated its total book gain from Saturday's transaction at £85.6 million. The sale is the latest in a series of divestments aimed at cutting debt that started in June 2006, when Ferrovial led a consortium that paid £16 billion, including debt, for UK airports operator BAA.

Plans to issue infrastructure bonds to refinance the acquisition and raise investment capital were spoiled by last year's credit squeeze, putting additional pressure on Ferrovial to shed non-essential assets.

The company and its BAA consortium partners are also under regulatory pressure to sell some assets of the UK airports operator.

In a provisional report, the UK Competition Commission ruled last month that BAA should sell two of its three London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted - and either Glasgow or Edinburgh in Scotland. If the ruling is confirmed next year, Ferrovial and its partners may lodge an appeal.

Ferrovial said on Saturday that the Belfast airport sale should be finalised by the end of this month. The buying group includes Faros Infrastructure Partners of the UK. - ( Financial Times service)