East Midlands Airport owner agrees £280m financing
The owner of East Midlands Airport has agreed a £280m five-year financing facility with seven banks. Manchester Airport Group’s (MAG) new facility replaces an existing three-year package due to expire in July 2011.
Finance director Ken Duncan told Insider the facility will help support a series of investment projects.
“We’re pleased to have completed the refinancing well before our existing facility ran out,” he said. “The five-year term gives us long-term stability and increased flexibility. It demonstrates that this kind of finance is available for the right businesses.”
MAG is the UK’s largest British-owned airport group and serves 24 million passengers through its ownership and operation of Manchester, East Midlands, Bournemouth and Humberside airports as well as the MAG Developments property business.
Barclays, the Co-operative Bank, Handelsbanken, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Yorkshire Bank and Santander have each provided £40m.
In July 2010, MAG revealed that operating profits had fallen to £56.1m in the year to 31 March 2010, down from £68.8m previously. Revenues were also 6 per cent lower at £348.9m following a 12 per cent reduction in passenger numbers to 23.9m across its four airports.
Duncan said the group’s results for 2010/11 are expected to be broadly flat although the company is anticipating “marginal growth” later in the year.
“Excluding the ash cloud impact, we’re tracking budget,” he said. “We’ve seen some pick up in passenger numbers although it’s very small increases. Summer is looking OK at the moment and we’d expect growth compared with last summer.
“But we don’t know what the increase in taxes and VAT will have yet – that will all have an impact.”
