Bids For London's Stansted Airport Due; At Least Two Expected-Sources

By Marietta Cauchi and Jessica Hodgson

LONDON--Bids for London's Stansted Airport being sold by U.K. airport operator BAA Ltd. are due later Tuesday with at least two potential buyers expected to submit by the deadline, people close to the deal told Dow Jones Newswires.

Deutsche Bank AG (DB) and ING Bank NV are running the auction for BAA, which is part owned by Spain's Ferrovial SA (FER.MC). The operator is selling the airport to satisfy competition concerns after four years spent fighting regulators and having already sold Gatwick, London's second-busiest airport, and Edinburgh airport to comply with the U.K. Competition Commission's concerns over its dominance of the U.K. airport sector.

Manchester Airports Group, which already owns Manchester, East Midlands and Bournemouth airports, has confirmed it is making a bid for Stansted and is bidding jointly with Australia investment firm Industry Funds Management.

Funds owned by Australian company Macquarie Group Ltd. (MQBKY) has also been looking at the asset and is likely to make a bid, two people familiar said.

It is unclear whether H.R.L Morrison & Co. Ltd. will bid. The New Zealand investment management company said last month that it had yet to decide whether it will lead a consortium bid to buy the airport. Morrison & Co. manages publicly listed fund Infratil Ltd. (IFT.NZ) and was appointed by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to manage a global infrastructure investment mandate in 2006. Any bid by Morrison & Co. will likely involve both funds.

Ryanair Holdings PLC (RYAAY) recently said it had been withdrawn from the process, saying Ferrovial excluded it from the sale.

Stansted, is valued at around one billion pounds ($1.58 billion)

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