GMR, GVK keen on Chicago airport

Mumbai: India’s GMR and GVK groups, the respective business houses behind the companies managing airports in New Delhi and Mumbai—the country’s top two airports—will together with international partners participate in bids to choose the developer to privatize Chicago’s Midway International Airport in the US, senior executives at the two groups said.
The bid could entail spending around $1 billion (Rs4,300 crore) according to an investment banker.
Under the privatization plan of the Chicago airport—the bigger airport in the city is the O’Hare International Airport— that is owned by the Illinois state, the private developer will have long-term exclusive rights to operate the airport and to collect all revenues associated with the operation of Midway including aeronautical, leases, passenger facility charges and federal grants, subject to Federal Aviation Authority, or FAA, rules.
The agreement term for the airport, which handled nearly 20 million passengers last year, is expected to be at least 50 years.
The Bangalore-based GMR Group won the 20-year operations right of Sabiha Gökcen International Airport at Istanbul earlier this year. Its plan to bid for the Chicago airport is part of its interest in several global airport projects, an executive said.
A second GMR executive, who did not want to be named, added the group had plans to bid for airport projects in South Africa, Prague in the Czech Republic and St Petersburg in Russia.
04/07/08 P.R. Sanjai/Livemint

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Categories: Airports Jun 2008, Foreign Jul 2008, New Jul 2008