LONDON â€" China's sovereign wealth fund announced on Thursday that it will buy a 10 percent stake in London's Heathrow airport for $727 million from the Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial and other investors.
Ferrovial, which currently owns an almost 50 percent stake in the British airport, has been moving to reduce its its debt burden by selling assets like its Heathrow holdings.
In August, Qatar Holding, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, agreed to buy a 20 percent stake in the British airport for $1.4 billion. The private equity firm Alinda Capital Partners also acquired a 6 percent holding in the airport for around $440 million last year.
“This sale of a stake in Heathrow Airport Holdings is a further part of Ferrovial's investment diversification strategy,†the Spanish company's chief executive, Ãñigo Meirás, said late on Wednesday.
Under the terms of the deal, China Investment Corporation, the country's sovereign wealth fund, wi ll buy a 5.7 percent stake in the holding company that owns Heathrow airport from Ferrovial for £257.4 million ($416 million). C.I.C. also will acquire an additional 4.3 percent holding in Heathrow's parent company, FGP Topco, from other shareholders for £192.6 million.
