Peel and partners in £600m+ Forth Ports bid

PROPERTY giant Peel Holdings, owner of the Trafford Centre and Manchester Ship Canal, is planning to use the proceeds of the sale of a stake in its airports division, to fund a £612m raid on Forth Ports.

Privately-owned Peel – which also recently sold a stake in its windfarms business, has teamed up with long term partner RREEF – a German infrastructure fund and part owner of its existing ports business – and Australian investor Arcus for the Forth Ports bid.

Forth Ports, which owns Tilbury and Grangemouth docks, is the only remaining listed UK ports company. It  has already snubbed two offers from the Peel consortium, which is called Northstream.

In January a 1285p per share offer was rebutted and then last month a bid of 1340p was also rejected.

Forth has refused to hold talks until after is closed period ends, after it publishes results on March 22.

A report in the Mail on Sunday said the proceeds of a partial sale of the loss-making Peel Airports – which includes Liverpool John Lennon, Robin Hood, Doncaster and Durham Tees Valley – to Vancouver Airport Services, would be used for the Forth bid.

Vancouver Airport Services operates 18 airports around the world, handling 30 million passengers a year.