The federal and Flemish governments are examing the possibly of jointly purchasing the Canadian pension fund OTPP’s 30% stake in Brussels Airport, the company that runs the country’s busiest airport at Zaventem (Flemish Brabant). Friday’s edition of the financial daily ‘De Tijd’ reports that the price tag could be around 2.6 billion euro.
Flemish and federal governments consider purchase of Canadian pension fund’s 30% stake in Brussels Airport
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The Australian investment firm Macquarie was in talks to acquire OTPP’s share. However, these talks failed to produce an agreement on price. Now the federal and Flemish governments are reportedly going to invest 1.6 billion euro each to purchase OTPP’s shares in Brussels Airport.
The federal authorities already hold 25%-plus-1-share stake in Brussels Airport. This is considered to be a strategic asset. The federal stake in the airport will increase to around 40% if the deal goes through. The Flemish authorities currently indirectly hold between 1% and 2% of the shares in Brussels Airport. Acquiring half of OTPP’s stake would raise this to around 16%.
Financing hurdles
Financing the purchase will remain a challenge. If the Flemish Participation Company (PMV) were to purchase half of OTPP’s 30% stake this would be the same as 71% of PMV’s total assets in 2023. When asked to comment on the newspaper report by PMV and the Flemish Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele’s office declined to comment.
With regard to a possible purchase of an additional 15% stake by the federal authorities, the Francophone liberals are strongly opposed to the plan. “The private shareholders must sort this out among themselves. The government should not pay billions of euro that it does not have for a larger stake in a company that is already doing very well.”
The airport that is located in the Flemish Brabant municipality of Zaventem contributes 8.8 billion euro/annum to Belgium’s GDP and supports around 65,000 jobs.