Business
Adebayo Ogunlesi – the man who bought Britain’s Gatwick Airport
Adebayo Ogunlesi. PHOTO/File
Adebayo Ogunlesi, a Nigerian-born investment banker made international headlines when he led the acquisition of London’s Gatwick Airport from the British Airports Authority in a recorded £1.51 billion (US$ 2.39 billion) deal.
Adebayo Ogunlesi, 58 is the chairman and managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a New York-based independent private equity fund focused primarily on infrastructural investments, with over US$5.6 billion under management. The purchase of Gatwick Airport may have grabbed all the headlines, but GIP has some other noteworthy assets in its portfolio including a 75 percent stake in London City Airport, and Biffa Limited, a UK based waste management company.
Gatwick Airport suffered deep losses over the years, and all the turnaround efforts made by its former managers, the British Airport Authority (BAA), failed to halt the downward spiral. In the first nine months of 2009, the airport reportedly recorded a pre-tax loss of over £780 million (US$ 1.23 billion), prompting the British government to actively shop for buyers.
But Ogunlesi believed strongly in the future of the airport so much that he invested some of his own personal funds into the acquisition. He promised to make Gatwick a truly first class international airline and substantially improve the customer experience. Judging from his antecedents, he is likely to deliver on those promises.
