Shares in British regional airport group TBI fell by 8.5 per cent yesterday as Hochtief, Germany's biggest construction group, said it had abandoned a potential takeover bid.

TBI operates Luton, Belfast International and Cardiff airports in the UK, and Stockholm-Skavsta airport in Sweden. It has been seeking to expand by attracting business from low-cost airlines.

The group, in which financier Mr Dermot Desmond holds a 5 per cent shareholding, also has limited airport interests in the US, on which it took a £6.2 million sterling (€9 million) write-off in the first half of the current financial year ending March, and in Bolivia.

In early December, following a sharp rise in the TBI share price, Hochtief Airport, the airport management arm of Europe's fifth-largest construction group, disclosed that it was "considering the merits" of a takeover of TBI.

Yesterday, however, the German group said it was "no longer considering a potential acquisition".

Hochtief said a review of available information about TBI had shown that the two companies would not be a good fit.

In a brief statement, TBI said that "at no stage" had it been contacted by Hochtief to discuss a potential offer.

TBI was also a takeover target in mid 2001, when French construction group Vinci launched a 90p-a-share hostile bid that valued TBI at £517.3 million.

The deal subsequently collapsed in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, which led to a steep fall in aviation and airport stocks.

Vinci still retains the 14.9 per cent stake it built up in TBI in 2001 but said last month that the stake was not considered to be a strategic holding and that it was for sale at the right price.

Mr Stanley Thomas, TBI's non-executive chairman, independently investigated the option of taking the group private last year but later abandoned the project.

The dominant shareholdings in TBI are held by members of the Thomas family with a total of about 19.2 per cent led by Mr Thomas with a personal holding of 9.4 per cent.