Heathrow’s Biggest Investor Plans to Move H.Q. Out of Britain
After Runway Win, Heathrow's Biggest Owner Plans to Drop U.K HQ
(Bloomberg) -- Heathrow airport’s biggest investor Ferrovial SA revealed plans to move its international holding company out of Britain -- a day after the U.K. Parliament backed a 16 billion-pound ($21 billion) extension to the hub.
The Madrid-based builder, which led a 10 billion-pound takeover of the London airport’s owner in 2006, will domicile its non-Spanish assets in Amsterdam from next year as a legal safeguard against Brexit, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The announcement came hours after lawmakers backed construction of a third runway at Heathrow in a late-night vote Monday, giving the green light to a project that’s been held up for decades. Ferrovial, which has reduced its stake in the airport to 25 percent over recent years, said the timing of the announcement after parliament had signed off on the controversial growth plan was purely coincidental. The group gets 20 percent of its revenue in the U.K.
The move to Amsterdam will ensure that Ferrovial’s international holding company remains within the European Union once Britain quits the bloc next year and doesn’t involve any transfer of jobs, the infrastructure operator said. Other companies have switched jurisdictions with Brexit looming, among them Anglo-Dutch consumer-products giant Unilever NV, which plans to consolidate its former dual headquarters in Rotterdam.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rodrigo Orihuela in Madrid at rorihuela@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Charles Penty at cpenty@bloomberg.net, Christopher Jasper, Benedikt Kammel
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