Nigerian acquires London Gatwick Airport

A Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi, has acquired the London Gatwick Airport as the new owner. The Gatwick deal is a £1.455 billion agreement with BAA Airports Limited. Ogunlesi, 56, is the chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an independent investment fund based in New York City with worldwide stake in infrastructure assets.

According to the report, Ogunlesi, the son of an 86-year old professor of medicine has presided over a great number of sweet deals that made him the envy of his peers abroad even if his forays into the brisk world multi-billion dollars deals are barely talked about in his home country. GIP will be investing through Ivy Bidco Limited, a limited liability company registered in England, established for the purpose of making the acquisition. Bidco will pay cash consideration of £1,455 million for the entire share capital of Gatwick Airport Limited on a cash-free, debt-free basis.

Ogunlesi says the acquisition of Gatwick is a landmark deal for GIP and adds another quality asset to his firm's rapidly expanding portfolio. He said, "We see significant scope to apply both our strong operational focus and our knowledge of the airports sector to make Gatwick an airport of choice." He began stacking up his big deals profile when he joined the top-shelf New York law firm, Cravath, Swain & Moore. It was at the law firm that he jumped at the chance to advise First Boston (which later acquired Credit Suisse in 1997 to form Credit Suisse First Boston or CSFB) on a hugely lucrative Nigerian gas project.

The success of that deal landed him his first big pay move to First Boston. For First Boston, he worked on project finance, brokering deals in which lenders finance assets like oil refineries and mines and are repaid with revenues generated by those enterprises. Based in New York City and traveling to emerging markets, he built CSFB's project-finance business into the world's best, in part by encouraging corporations and governments to tap public debt markets in addition to commercial lenders.

Source: Thisday