Ferrovial and Macquarie are set to seize control of Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports in a deal worth about £1 billion.

Ferrovial, which paid £10.6 billion for BAA in 2006, remains a 25 % shareholder in the now-renamed Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH). HAH sold Gatwick for £1.5 billion in 2009 to Global Infrastructure Partners, which went on to buy Edinburgh in 2012 for £807 million. Stansted was sold last year for £1.5 billion to the Manchester Airport Group.

The sale process has been delayed by Heathrow's complex shareholding structure, but is expected to be announced within weeks. InfraPPP understands that Ferrovial saw its bid delayed because other shareholders were keen for a competitive auction.

The three airports collectively handled about 13m passengers a year, from Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH).

- Southampton Airport is located 6.5 km north north-east of Southampton, in the Borough of Eastleigh within Hampshire, England. The airport handled 1,722,758 passengers during 2013, a 1.7% increase compared with 2012, making it the 18th busiest airport in the UK.

- Glasgow Abbotsinch Airport, is an international airport in Scotland, located 11 km west of Glasgow city centre. In 2013 the airport handled nearly 7.4 million passengers, a 2.9% annual increase, making it the second busiest in Scotland, after Edinburgh Airport, and the eighth busiest airport in the United Kingdom.

- Aberdeen International Airport is located at Dyce, a suburb of Aberdeen, Scotland, approximately 9.3 km northwest of Aberdeen city centre. A total of 3.44 million passengers used the airport in 2013, an increase of 3.3% compared with 2012 and a record annual total for the airport.