Florentino Perez, chairman of ACS, a Spanish construction company looking to take 70 per cent control of MBJ Airports. - file
Spain's big construction company, Actividades de Construc-tion y Servicios (ACS), is moving to take a majority stake in the consortium that manages Montego Bay's Sangster airport, an acquisition that will effectively give it control of the facility, officials here have confirmed.
ACS, which now holds 35 per cent MBJ Airports, the vehicle used by the consortium partners for their 35-year concession to run Sangster International.
When the deal is finalised, ACS will have doubled its position, having paid euro29.2 million to the Chilean airport management and shipping line operator, Agunsa, for its holding.
Reports in Spain this week suggested that an agreement had been sealed, but both Jamaican officials and MBJ's CEO, Jorge Sales, said yesterday that the negotiations were still taking place.
"This is something that has not yet happened," Sales said. This is something in the minds of the partners. There are things to happen if there is to be an agreement."
Precisely what these things were, Sales did not say, but they possibly include regulatory approval from the Jamaican authorities as well as the imprimatur of the Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ), which controlled Sangster before its divestment nearly three years ago. The formula for any change of ownership is set out in both the concession and shareholders agreement, officials say.
"The Chileans wanted to sell and the Spanish wanted to buy, which is what they are doing," said a senior Jamaican official. "They have to get our approval. We would have been informed but the formal process has not yet taken place."
With Agunsa out of the consortium and ACS' stake up to 70 per cent, its partners in MBJ would be the Israeli construction company Ashtrom and Vancouver Airport, each with 15 per cent.
Expanding and renovating
The new eastern concourse building at Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, built by MBJ Airports Limited which is upgrading and managing the airport under a 30-year concession agreement. - file
Originally it was another Spanish construction company, Grupo Dragado, that was a member of the MBJ consortium, but Dragado was acquired by ACS, whose chairman, Florentino Perez is also chairman of the Spanish football club, Real Madrid.
Since their take over of Sangster International in 2004, MBJ has completed a US$42 million terminal building and is now spending another
US$72 million expanding and renovating an old terminal building, which, when completed next June, will triple the airport's capacity to nine million passengers a year.
Other expansion and retrofitting work will continue until mid-2008.
ACS' deepening of its stake in MBJ will be an expansion of the so-called new Spanish invasion of Jamaica, led in recent years by a raft of leisure companies that have been building hotels along the island's north shore.
Jamaica was a Spanish colony between 1494, when it was stumbled upon by the explorer, Christopher Columbus, and 1650, when it was wrested away by the British.
When Perez visited Jamaica in January on holiday, it was widely assumed that he was also seeking to scout business opportunities for his group, especially in highway construction.
Dragado had been one of the unsuccessful bidders for the concession to develop Highway 2000.
"With the Spanish hotels that are now here, Jamaica has come into the sights of other Spanish investors who see opportunities," said a government official. "There is clearly synergies between Spanish hotel ownership and control of an airport that services guests to those hotels."
However, MBJ's Sales suggested that a change in the consortium with one lead partner was unlikely lead to any radical change in approaches.
"What will guide it is the shareholders' agreement," he said. The agreement requires specific processes and qualified majorities for certain kinds of decisions, which would still obtain, he said.
business@gleanerjm.com
