France’s Vinci throws its beret in the ring for Queensland Airports

afr.com:

Turns out Melbourne’s EastLink toll road is not the only Aussie asset that French infrastructure giant Vinci Group’s got its eye on.

Street Talk understands Vinci is also gunning hard for Queensland Airports Limited, which is guiding to $140 million EBITDA this financial year and has a 74 per cent stake up for grabs via Barrenjoey and Macquarie Capital.

Sources said Vinci has quietly sifted through early marketing materials and has mandated Lazard Australia’s infrastructure bankers to steer it through the auction. It’s not known if the Euronext-listed giant has locked in an Australian bid partner yet to meet Airport Act’s requirement of 51 per cent Aussie ownership for local airports.

Melbourne’s EastLink toll road. Craig Sillitoe

Vinci is among the world’s biggest airport owners and operators, with more than 70 assets including London’s Gatwick, Lisbon, Osaka’s Itami, Santiago and Lisbon – but it is yet to plant its foot on the Australian shores. Its airport holdings contributed €2.7 billion of its €61.7 billion group revenue in 2022.

At Hobart Airport, it was among the bidders shortlisted to buy a 70 per cent stake put up for sale by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (now, Macquarie Asset Management) and Tasplan (now Spirit Super) in 2019. It lost the auction to QIC and its Dutch partner, Schiphol, who paid circa $600 million for the stake.

The QAL portfolio is much bigger and has hit the market after a strong post-COVID recovery. With it, Vinci would be hoping to get its Aussie airport at last, to sit alongside the 13 countries that it already plays in.

But first, it would have to go up against US private equity giant KKR which has signed up billionaires Scott Farquhar and Kin Jackson’s Skip Capital to come