Cairns Airport and Mackay Airport owner the North Queensland Airports Group has started drumming up interest from prospective buyers, in the past week sending promotional material out for the sale by investment bank Macquarie Capital.
The shareholders of the regional airport company are moving on a divestment after Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Skip Capital paid about $3bn for a stake of just over 74 per cent in the Gold Coast Airport owner, Queensland Airports Limited, from shareholders TIF, State Super and ART.
Queensland Airports owns regional airports including Gold Coast, Townsville, Mount Isa and Longreach, servicing travellers across more than 40 domestic and international routes.
It saw off competition from AustralianSuper, which has also purchased an extra 25 per cent stake in Perth Airport from UTA. Dexus, which has inherited airport assets through its acquisition of AMP Capital, was also in the race.
Earlier, Palisade Investment Partners and French investor Vinci were in the mix, along with Stonepeak, but they fell away.
The parties may return for the North Queensland Airports process.
For the North Queensland Airports sale, all eyes are on The Infrastructure Fund as the main group keen for a selldown, but others may also be looking to stage an exit.
TIF owns 27 per cent of the asset and the drawcard for foreign investors is there are no government restrictions for them taking ownership.
North Queensland Airports comprises Cairns Airport, Mackay Airport and Mackay Airport Hotel.
A JPMorgan Asset Management-controlled fund owns 66 per cent, while the other owner is Perron with 7 per cent.
In 2018, Auckland International Airport offloaded its 24.6 per cent stake to Perron and The Infrastructure Fund for $370m.
Cairns Airport describes itself as one of Australia’s leading regional airports, providing air links to a variety of regional, domestic and international destinations.
For the year to June, Cairns Airport had just over four million passengers. But, the airport says before the pandemic it had more than five million passengers per year.
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