New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners has agreed to buy Gatwick Airport from UK airport operator BAA for £1.51 bn (EUR 1.67 bn)

New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners has agreed to buy Gatwick Airport from UK airport operator BAA for £1.51 bn (EUR 1.67 bn)

BAA, owned by Spanish building firm Ferrovial, said that £55 mln of the sales price was conditional on future traffic performance and the buyer's future capital structure.

The proceeds of the sale will be used primarily to repay part of BAA's existing debt. BAA announced its plans to sell Gatwick in September 2008, before the end of the Competition Commission's UK airports market investigation ordered the firm to sell three of its airports. BAA is appealing against the ruling that it must sell Stansted and either Glasgow Airport or Edinburgh Airport.