Banks to lend BAA billions to redevelop UK airports
Banks to lend BAA billions to redevelop UK airports
Passengers at some of Britain's airports will benefit from improved facilities after the airports operator BAA secured multi-billion pound funding. According to The Times, large parts of some of London's airports are set to be redeveloped.
Nine banks are to provide BAA with a loan of £4.65 billion for use at
London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, and have also made an additional £3 billion available for future spending. It is thought that this last amount will be used to build Heathrow East, which will replace Terminals 1 and 2, and to expand Stansted.
An unnamed source felt that securing the loan was a significant achievement: "These are challenging conditions, so it is a major endorsement of the company and a very important milestone." The banks providing the agreed loan include HSBC, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander.
A further cash injection could also come in the form of another loan from other banks, with which talks are said to be at an advanced stage. This would be backed by income from Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton airports. The secured commitment follows a year of delays to the refinancing of BAA. The operator was bought by
Spanish company Ferrovial two years ago, a deal which lumbered them with £10 billion in debt.
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3 June 2008
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