City-born Canadian citizen Prem Watsa has firmed up his control in Bangalore International Airport Limited by agreeing to purchase the residual five per cent stake held by Zurich Airport in the airpor
City-born Canadian citizen Prem Watsa has firmed up his control in Bangalore International Airport Limited by agreeing to purchase the residual five per cent stake held by Zurich Airport in the airport developer. The deal is valued for $48.9 million.
“We have reached an agreement with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Hold-ings Ltd,” a Zurich Air-port spokesperson said in an e-mail. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed within the third quarter of 2016, as per a statement issued by the Swiss company.
BIAL owns and operates the Kempegowda Interna-tional Airport Bengaluru (KIAB) under a 30-year concession agreement, with a further 30-year extension option from the Centre.
KIAB has the distinction of being the first greenfield airport in the country built by the private sector under a public-private partnership.
GVK Group had partnered with Zurich Air-port among others to float BIAL. Zurich Airport, which originally had 17 per cent stake, offloaded 12 per cent to GVK Power and Infrastructure.
Recently, GVK Group announced its plan to sell a 33 per cent stake in BIAL to Fairfax India Holdings Corp and Fai-rfax Financial Holdings Ltd to raise money to repay debt. The move would leave GVK’s stake in the airport company at 10 per cent.
After the Zurich deal, Hyderabad-born Prem Watsa led Fairfax will consolidate its stake in BIAL to 38 per cent. This makes up more than half of the 74 per cent shareholding held by private entities in BIAL.
Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corpo-ration hold 13 per cent and Airports Authority of India hold 13 per cent in the airport developer.
The Zurich deal is part of Canada-based Fairfax Group’s long-term plans to expand its presence in India.
