UK airports owner BAA made a £225 million loss on the sale of Gatwick.
The operator revealed the loss as it opened its books on its numbers for 2009, which have turned a deep red.
BAA sold Gatwick to Global Infrastructure Partners for £1.51 billion but has now revealed that it had the airport valued at £1.735 billion for its accounts. This allowed it to declare the difference between what the airport was worth on paper and the actual amount BAA got.
The loss on the sale put BAA into a pre-tax loss of £784.7 million for the nine months to the end of September, a hike of 51 per cent on the £519.5 million over the same period last year.
A consortium led by Spanish services group Ferrovial bought BAA for £10 billion last year.
Dinah Hatch
