LONDON: Canada’s Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan said it had bought 19.25 percent stake in Birmingham Airport from Australia’s Victorian Funds Management Corporation, taking its investment in the British airport to 48.25 percent.
Ontario Teachers first invested in Birmingham Airport in 2001. It then acquired a joint 48.25 percent stake with Victorian Funds Management (VFM) for 420 million pounds in 2007 when Macquarie Airports Group and Aer Rianta made a full exit.
The investment was led by Ontario Teacher’s Infrastructure Group, which manages a global portfolio of $11.7 billion of investments. Its other airport investments include UK’s Bristol, Copenhagen and Brussels.
The Canadian pension fund wants to strengthen Birmingham Airport’s position as a regional hub in the UK by tapping into its capacity of around 9.5 million passengers per year.
The airport, which hosts a number of low cost airlines such as Ryanair, Flybe, Monarch and Thomas Cook, offers domestic and international flights to destinations in Europe, North America and the Middle East.
