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The battle for Gatwick Airport intensified today as it emerged that the owner of London City Airport had a £1.3 billion bid rejected.
BAA, which owns Gatwick, turned down the offer from Global Infrastructure Partners which is locked in a bidding war with a consortium led by Manchester Airport.
BAA — bought in 2006 for £10.1 billion by Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial — said the offer was too low and is thought to be holding out for £1.5 billion or more.
BAA, which also owns Heathrow and Stansted, last night launched an appeal against a ruling by the Competition Commission which ordered it to sell two London airports and either Edinburgh or Glasgow within two years.
It claims the ruling is “affected by apparent bias”.
London and Manchester airports were left as the only bidders for Gatwick after a group led by Citi Infrastructure Investors was eliminated last week after making a bid thought to be worth only £1.2 billion. BAA called the offer uncompetitive.
However, BAA sources today said it was still in talks with more than one bidder for Gatwick and analysts have not ruled out another bid from Citi Infrastructure to challenge London and Manchester.
