INFRASTRUCTURE holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp. has set up a joint venture with two foreign airport operators – Aéroports de Paris of France and TAV Havalimanlari Holdings A.S of Turkey – to bid for five regional airport projects under the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) framework.
MPIC disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday that it had taken a 60 percent interest in a consortium that will vie for the operations and maintenance of the Bacolod-Silay, Iloilo, Davao, Laguindingan and Panglao-Bohol airports under the PPP program.
These five airports served around nine million passengers in 2014, the disclosure said.
The MPIC-led consortium is called “Philippine Airports Consortium” whereby the remaining 40 percent interest is held by Philippines Airports Management Co., a joint venture between Aéroports de Paris Management SA, a subsidiary of Aéroports de Paris, and TAV Havalimanlari Holdings.
Aéroports de Paris builds, develops and manages airports, including Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly and Paris-Le Bourget. In 2014, Aéroports de Paris handled around 92.7 million passengers and 2.2 million metric tonnes of freight and mail at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly, and 41.4 million passengers in airports abroad through its subsidiary Aéroports de Paris Management (ADPM).
The French group is also the owner of 38 percent of the capital of the Turkish operator TAV Airports. In 2014, Group revenue stood at €2,791 million and net income at €402 million.
TAV Airports, for its part, operates 14 airports in Turkey, Georgia, Tunisia, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Croatia and Latvia. Through its subsidiaries, TAV Airports provides services in all areas of airport operations including duty-free, food and beverage, ground handling, information technology, security and operation services. The company provided services to around 743,000 flights and 95 million passengers in 2014. Its shares are listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange under the ticker code “TAVHL”.
The three groups have entered into an exclusive Philippine airport consortium agreement to govern their relationship with one another in participating in the bidding for the PPP regional airports project.