Aena president Jose Manuel Vargas Gomez rings the bell at the Madrid Stock Exchange during a ceremony marking the listing of its stocks.
AFP/Madrid
Shares in Spain’s Aena, the world’s biggest airport operator by passenger numbers, jumped 15.71% to €67.11 in their first day of trading yesterday on the Madrid stock market.
The strong demand for the partial privatisation of Aena, Europe’s biggest stock market listing since 2011 according to analysts, is a fresh sign of a surge in investor appetite for Spanish assets after six years of economic crisis.
State-owned Aena on Tuesday priced shares in its initial public offering at €58 per share, valuing the firm at €8.7bn ($9.8bn).
Aena said at the time the offer was almost five times over-subscribed, which allowed it to set the price for the share listing at the very top of the €53-€58 range it set last week.
The company runs 46 airports and two heliports in Spain and another 15 in Latin America, the US and Europe, including London’s Luton.
It handled nearly 196mn passengers last year, a 4.5% increase over 2013.
Hit hard by Spain’s economic downturn, the operator underwent a massive overhaul which included firing 20% of its workers and a rise in airport taxes that have helped restore it back to financial health.
The company reported a net profit of €596.7mn ($689.1mn) for 2013, emerging from a net loss of €63.5mn the previous year. Results for 2014 are not yet available, but Aena said its revenues rose 6.4% during the first nine months to €2.39bn thanks to a rise in airport traffic as Spain’s economy picked up and stronger sales from duty free shops.
Aena fixed the size of the offering at 44.55% of its capital, an amount that can be raised to 49% if an over-allotment option is exercised.
