Auckland International Airport, which expects to triple passenger numbers over the next 30 years, plans to use debt to fund a $2.5 billion, 30-year expansion that includes a second runway, says chief executive Adrian Littlewood.
Work on the long slated second runway began in 2007 but was halted when the global financial crisis sapped demand for air travel. The company now expects to complete the work by 2025, according to a strategy paper. The first stage of the plan is a merged domestic and international terminal with more car parking, to be built by 2022 at an estimated cost of $150 million.
"It will have no impact on dividends and no call on equity, this will be purely debt funded," Littlewood told BusinessDesk. "Based on our very high-level estimates, and these are very high level, it's about $2.5 billion in today's dollars."
"But the reality is that number won't be known until we go through every project as it unfolds and is delivered and priced," he said.
Last October, the airport company announced plans to return of $454 million of capital to shareholders, saying it wanted a more "efficient" mix of debt and equity and would still have sufficient flexibility on its balance sheet to fund expansion plans.