The airport operator BAA, a subsidiary of Ferrovial, will receive the second round of bids for the London Gatwick airport before the April 27, Reute

File photo dated August 11 which shows a group of passengers at Gatwick airport, south of the United Kingdom. Reuters / File

The airport operator BAA put the airport up for sale late last year and hired Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC as advisers in anticipation of the final decision of the British competition regulator.

Last March, the British regulator announced that BAA must sell in a period of two years three of its seven British airports, including London's Gatwick and Stansted, because too much air traffic control of the country.

The same sources reported that in the sale are three potential buyers, which include Global Infrastructure Partners, which includes the owners of London City Airport, General Electric and Credit Suisse.

Yet another candidate is a consortium that includes an infrastructure fund of Citigroup, airport Vancouver Airport and John Hancock Life Insurance under the name of Lysander Investment Gatwick and the third is Manchester Airports.

However, it remains unknown amount of bids that are likely to send the three potential buyers in late April.

The initial assessments at the beginning of the process of selling over 2,000 million pounds (2,261 million), although it could be between 1,500 million and 2,000 million pounds (1,696 and 2.261 million euros).

The sources indicated that "it is likely that BAA has a good idea of where Iran offers", while expressing doubts about the airport manager would like to continue with the sale if the ratings were below 1,500 million pounds.

"There is a deadline for this sale in adverse economic conditions," they added, referring to the term of two years for BAA to sell airports.

Apart from HSBC and RBS, other banks involved in the sale, probably the seven entities that took part in the sale of BAA Ferrovial in 2006 to 7150 million pounds (8082.7 million).

This funding is estimated at 1,100 million pounds sterling for the purchase and 500 million for future investments.

However, sources knowledgeable of the process indicated that funding has been handled individually by each offeror, depending on their business plans, which allows banks to obtain permission to allocate the funding.