Manchester Airports Group – MAG – the owner and operator of Manchester, London Stansted, East Midlands and Bournemouth airports, has reported 4.3% growth for the Group for the full year to March 2014.
At Manchester, a total of 17.995m passengers passed through the airport over the year; for March 2014 numbers were 1.435m, slightly down on the previous year but April 2014 numbers are expected to see the benefit of a later Easter.
The Group also announces that is has completed the next phase of its financing strategy with the successful issue of a £360m, 10-year bond at a rate of 4.125%. Given the level of demand from the debut bond, MAG was able to announce and close the deal in the same day and capitalise on the investor interest generated in February, when the Group issued its debut £450m, 20-year bond at a rate of 4.750%.
Charlie Cornish, Chief Executive of MAG, said:
“The Group continues its positive performance and we were delighted by the significant investor demand for the deal. It’s a testament to the strength of MAG and the work that went into our debut bond transaction. It completes the acquisition re-financing element of our strategy and secures a total of £810m of long term funding in the capital markets.
“It’s been a significant week as we announced a new Cathay Pacific service to Hong Kong for Manchester, which is important for the North of England and our Airport City project. We will continue to progress our Stansted integration and foster rises in passenger volume growth at our airports.”
During the month, it was announced by the Chancellor in the Budget that the government had agreed to abolish the higher rates of Air Passenger Duty levied on long haul services from 2015. This will give the UK a much needed boost when attracting new services to growth economies such as China. MAG has long argued for the reform of Air Passenger Duty and will continue to work for exemptions on new long haul services from regional airports.