Bristol Airport has a new owner following a deal announced this week in which a Canadian pension fund bought out the airport’s Australian co-shareholder.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which already held a 50% stake in the airport, acquired the remaining 50% from Australian asset manager Macquarie Group.
The airport, the UK’s ninth busiest, is recovering rapidly from the recession and is on track to record passenger numbers this year. In 2013 it posted pre-tax profits of £25.8m. 
Although no financial details of the deal were made public, news agency Reuters was reporting that Ontario Teachers’ had said it July that it could spend up to £250m to buy Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund’s half stake.
The companies said in a statement that the deal is expected to close by the end of this month.
Ontario Teachers, Canada’s largest single-profession pension plan, originally invested in the airport in 2001 and raised its stake to 49% in 2009.
That deal left Macquarie, the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager, with 50% with the remaining 1% belonging to Sydney Airport. Ontario Teachers acquired Sydney Airport’s stake last year.
Bristol Airport chief executive Robert Sinclair said in a statement: “Macquarie and Teachers have been instrumental in supporting the expansion of the airport’s route network and significantly enhanced facilities for passengers.”
Last week the airport said it had continued to break its own passenger number records by achieving another best-ever monthly total in August and recording the busiest day in its history.
Some 723,000 people used the airport last month as the holiday getaway season reached its peak. On one day alone – August 14 – 25,390 passed through the terminal in 24 hours, the largest number since it opened in 1957.
The annual total for 2014 is expected to exceed the previous high of 6.2m achieved in 2008.
Last month it announced a £8.6m extension of its terminal – the first major expansion of the building since it opened in 14 years ago.
The scheme forms the latest stage of a large-scale, phased development at the airport which will lift capacity from 6m to 10m passengers a year. Bosses also hope it will bring about the return of direct transatlantic flights and the opening of new Middle East routes.
