Airports

Regional & City Airports is the specialist airport acquisition arm of the company’s asset management activities.

Regional & City Airports (RCA) is Balfour Beatty’s specialist airport investment and development group, established in 2006.

Since its inception RCA has successfully acquired Exeter and Blackpool airports and has both bid for and actively considered a number of other opportunities in the UK and Europe.

Exeter International was acquired in January 2007 from Devon County Council following a competitive auction process. The airport was acquired for £60m, with acquisition debt of £30m. RCA then sold a 40% shareholding to the Galaxy Fund post completion
Blackpool was acquired in May 2008 through an off-market sales process from Northern Irish property developer MAR Properties. The £14m acquisition for 95% of the shares in the airport was cash funded. Blackpool Council owns the remaining 5% of the shares

RCA’s objective is to target airports where there is scope to add value by implementing material change. In particular, RCA has demonstrable skills in investing in airports at an early stage in their growth cycles, there is often likely to be a significant amount of capital development required to deliver the growth. In this regard, RCA operates independently from the contracting divisions of Balfour Beatty Group.

Through its operational and bidding activities, and drawing on Balfour Beatty Group, RCA has developed a strong core team with skills and experience in all aspects of airport operations and business development such as:

Route development
Terminal management
Commercial business development
Sustainability
Capital development
Master planning
Safety

This core team includes individuals with managing director level experience at airports with annual passenger numbers up to 25m and senior management and route development experience at airports with passenger numbers of up to 65m pa – Three such people are John Spooner, formerly a Managing Director of Manchester Airport, Andrew Wolstenholme, formerly a Director of Development of BAA and Clive Coleman, formerly Head of Development at Heathrow and Gatwick.