Stansted Airport Sale

Stansted airport going once, going twice, sold to the gentleman at the back for £1.5b. The owners of Manchester airport the Manchester Airport Group or MAG for short currently also as well own East-Midlands airport and Bournemouth airport made a bid of £1.5b for the struggling Stansted airport which was accepted and finalised early last week, it came as no surprise that MAG would bid to buy Stansted as they had a failed bid to buy Gatwick early 2009.

MAG have wanted to buy a London airport for some considerable time as London is seen as the “world hub of aviation”. However from an investment point of view they paid as much as the new owners of Gatwick paid for their takeover or around that price reportedly. The odd thing about this is Gatwick is seen as a much better investment than Stansted, Stansted airport is said to be on the decline and is now the 4th busiest airport in the UK ironically falling behind Manchester. On the face of it what it looks like is they’ve paid more for less than they already have.

There are positives about Stansted; it is still a widely used airport and huge business in the aviation world. The building is beautiful and a large size suitable to make improvements and come up with new and innovative ideas on ways to improve the airport on a whole, once the fastest growing airport in the UK there is still potential. However it’s also got more downfalls with awkward rail links and being the furthest away from key roads and the centre it’s not the best location.

Are the Manchester Airport Group on a shopping spree? They now have reports of a takeover bid for the Chicago airport in America, currently the 16th biggest airport in America it would be a great link from their buy of Stansted and it would add to their army of airports. A City of Chicago spokesman said: “We can confirm that Manchester Airports Group was one of the 16.” Confirming the rumours, MAG are taking the aviation world by storm.