The Marguerite Fund announced that it has acquired a 10% stake in Fraport Greece, the owner and operator of 14 regional airports in Greece. The stake was sold by Slentel, a company of the Copelouzos Group, which remains a minority shareholder in the company alongside Fraport AG.
Marguerite, a European Fund for Energy, Climate Change and Infrastructure (“Marguerite 1”), was established in 2010 with the backing of six major European public financial institutions and the European Commission, with EUR710 million of commitments, to make capital-intensive infrastructure investments within the EU. Marguerite 1 was the first fund of its kind launched by Europe’s leading public financial institutions, and was established to make capital-intensive infrastructure investments and will target attractive long-term and stable risk-adjusted returns.
The six core sponsors of the fund are Caisse des depots et consignations (state, France), Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (state,Italy), the European Investment Bank, Instituto de Crédito Oficial (state, Spain), KfW (our old friend, the German government-owned development bank ), and PKO Bank Polski SA (Privatised with a strong public sector /green investments agenda, Poland). Two of then (Caisse des depots and KfW) are independent airport investors in their own right.
In addition, three further investors (including the European Commission) have committed an incremental EUR110 million to the Fund, bringing the current commitments to EUR710 million.
Fraport Greece, one of two country-specific subsidiaries of Fraport (the other is Fraport Brazil) was set up to complete a EUR1.2 billion contract to lease and manage 14 provincial airports in popular tourist islands, including Corfu and Santorini, for 40 years. It will invest EUR330 million by 2020, to upgrade facilities and more than EUR1.4 billion over the term of the lease. The consortium, where Fraport has a majority stake, also pays an annual fixed rental fee of about EUR23 million. Actual ownership of the airports is retained by the Greek government throughout the concession term.
This transaction, closed in December 2017, marks the 20th and final investment of the Marguerite Fund that is now fully invested. Fraport Greece represents an attractive opportunity in a portfolio of airports which will invest approximately €400 million to improve and expand the airports’ infrastructure by 2021.
Nicolás Merigó, CEO of Marguerite, declared: “After our initial investment in airports in 2013 with Zagreb Airport, we are very pleased to add to our portfolio these landmark assets. We look forward to working with Fraport, the Copelouzos Group and the other stakeholders for the development of Fraport Greece.”
Meanwhile, passenger traffic and flights according to figures released by the country’s Civil Aviation Authority on Tuesday posted an all-time high in Greece last year,
The number of passengers passing through Greek airports in 2017 went past the 58-million mark, up by 9.5 percent from 2016.
Source: Marguerite Fund
