RREEF-Babcock Consortium Drops Gatwick Bid

February 17, 2009

Deutsche Bank's RREEF Infrastructure and Babcock & Brown have dropped their joint bid for London's Gatwick Airport, a RREEF spokesman said on Tuesday.

The group's withdrawal comes after a consortium linked to 3i halted a rival bid -- leaving just a handful of active bidders for the airport, which analysts believe Spanish owner Ferrovial is hoping to sell for about GBP2 billion pounds (USD$2.83 billion).

"We're definitively out," the RREEF spokesman said. He said a demanding time frame for conducting due diligence and the difficulties of securing large-scale debt financing had led to the withdrawal.

A spokesman for Babcock & Brown in London declined to comment.

Two confirmed bidders remain: Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a fund with General Electric and Credit Suisse as founding investors; and Citigroup unit Citi Infrastructure Investors, with Vancouver Airport Services and John Hancock Life Insurance, bidding jointly as Lysander Gatwick Investment Group.

In January, a person familiar with the process said a third group, made up of Manchester Airports Group and Canada's Borealis, was also bidding.

The Australian-listed Babcock, whose market value has plummeted, reached a debt restructuring deal with lenders earlier this month.