Brussels, 06/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has decided to approve the acquisition of joint control by the consortium between Hochtief Airport GmbH (HTA) and IVG Holding AG (IVG) of the company Berlin Brandenburg Flughafen Holding (BBF). The latter manages three Berlin commercial airports: Tegel, Tempelhof and Schönefeld. BBF was hitherto held by the State and by the Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg. The consortium's plan is to concentrate all the air traffic of the Berlin region into a single airport, by transforming the present Schönfeld airport into a single major airport called Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI).
In 1999, the Commission had already reached a decision regarding an earlier project of HTA and Flughafen Frankfurt Main AG (FAG) to acquire joint control of BBF, and had concluded that the merger would not result in creating or strengthening a dominant position on the airport management market (see EUROPE of 26 May 1999, page 11). The project notified is very similar to the earlier project. FAG, however, will only hold a minority stake within the consortium. Another partner, Flughafen Wien/Berlin-Brandenburg International Entwicklungsbeteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (subsidiary of Flughafen Wien AG, which manages the airports of Wien-Schwechat and Vöslau), will also acquire a minority stake in the consortium. Upon further examination, the Commission confirmed that the transaction would not entail competition distortion between European airports.