Aena pays dearly for its expansion in Brazil – Finanzas.com

Aena has been awarded the concession of 11 Brazilian airports (12 percent of the country’s traffic in 2019, before the pandemic) for a period of thirty years for some 780 million euros, a price considered too high by the analysts. “Initially, the price paid for the concession seems high,” the Renta 4 experts point out in this regard. Specifically, the price of the award of these infrastructures is 331 percent above the starting price in one of the 3 lots of airports that were awarded, in which Aena was practically the only bidder (only in one there were two bidders). Aena pays a premium of up to 331 percent with respect to the starting price “The price seems high considering the bulk of the premium with respect to the starting price and we are struck by the scant interest that the three lots that have been were awarded,” says another analyst who prefers to remain anonymous. Although both this expert and those of Renta 4 acknowledge that many of the terms of this operation are still unknown (such as, for example, the operating magnitudes of these airports), it is therefore not possible to fully assess whether the operation is expensive or cheap. All in all, the experts believe that it is positive that Aena continues with its geographical diversification begun with Lutton, other small airports located in Latin America and, now, with this new foray into Brazil (Aena already manages another six airports in Brazil). Banco Sabadell analysts are optimistic about Aena’s operation in Brazil “Positive news”, say Banco Sabadell analysts in this sense. “We believe that there are synergies with the airports that Aena already has in Brazil (Grupo Nordeste) from the financial point of view and, in the absence of knowing more details of the asset, we estimate that the purchase would have an impact of more than 3 percent in the AENA’s target price”, adds the Banco Sabadell report. Specifically, the Brazilian airports for which Aena has been awarded are Congonhas, Campo Grande, Uberlândia, Santarém, Marabá, Montes Claros, Carajás, Altamira, Uberaba, Corumbá and Ponta Porã, with Congonhas airport being the group’s main aerodrome, with 22.8 million passengers in 2019, 85 percent of the group of these eleven airports. In any case, from Banco Sabadell they believe that, despite the fact that the internationalization and expansion of the business to Latin America is something positive for Aena (whose business is too concentrated in Spain), it will not be “a catalyst for value”. The purchase of the airports in Brazil will have a limited impact on the evolution of the stock “This is news with a limited impact due to the size of the assets,” they assert in the report. In Renta 4 they have Aena in “hold” with a target price of 120.2 euros per share (a price that exceeds the current price); while in Sabadell they maintain a purchase advice at a target price of 166 euros. For its part, 36.7 percent of experts from the consensus of analysts recommend buying the value; by 56.7 percent of specialists who prefer to keep it in their portfolio and 6.7 percent who would choose to sell the company’s shares. The consensus gives Aena’s shares a potential of over 20 percent As for the Bloomberg consensus price, it stands at 151.72 euros, which represents a revaluation potential of 21.4 percent with respect to the 125 euros to what is currently listed. ● Follow the news of Finanzas.com from your favorite social network or app: Twitter | Flipboard | LinkedIn | Facebook | Telegram