Spanish practices at BAA

Grokking a few numbers over lunch, I think I've worked out why Ferrovial's bid for BAA (starting at 935p) succeeded while Goldman's at 940p failed, despite the former being both a) foreign and b) subsidised by about 50p per share (thanks to Spain's lenient tax treatment of goodwill acqs.)

The key seems to be in what they assumed about British airport fees.

Goldman assumed British travellers would be prepared to pay much higher fees and ticket prices - because with new runway agreements moving so slowly, the rise in air passengers alone wouldn't have justified the debt loading of their bid (forget how much they bid, but there were a lot of zeroes on the end of it).

The Spanish bidder, however, assumed lower fee increases at British airports (hooray!) - and with Spain being such a popular destination for Brits, I bet Ferrovial has an interest in keeping Brits' ticket prices cheap.

So to sum up: the regulators accepted a lower, foreign bid, thanks to the Spaniards' greater enthusiasm for keeping our air ticket prices low!