The privatisation of Italy’s Catania Airport is expected to start next month after lengthy delays, with international airport operators circling the deal, said sources familiar with the situation.

The public-sector shareholders of Società Aeroporto Catania (SAC), led by the Chamber of Commerce of South-East Sicily and advised by Mediobanca, are finalising government approvals to kick off the process, which is Italy’s first airport privatisation in seven years, said the sources.

They are set to put on the market a majority stake ranging between 51% and 66% in the company which runs Catania Airport, Sicily’s largest and Italy’s fifth-busiest airport, and the smaller Comiso Airport, according to the sources. SAC did not respond to a request for comment.

A large group of airport operators is considering taking part in the privatisation process, including the largest groups active in Italy.

2i Aeroporti, which is backed by F2i and Asterion Industrial Partners and holds stakes in eight Italian airports, is considering participating in the process, and so is SAVE Group, the operator of Venice Airport that is set to be acquired by a team of Ardian Infrastructure and Finint Infrastructure, according to sources.

Blackstone-backed Mundys, which operates Italy’s largest airport, Rome Fiumicino, is also considering taking part in the process, sources added.

Argentina’s Corporacion America, which is already present in Italy as the main shareholder of Florence Airport and Pisa Airport, is also weighing a bid for the asset, according to sources.

SAVE’s new buyers, Ardian and Finint, as well as Mundys declined to comment, while representatives for 2i Aeroporti and Corporacion America did not respond to requests for comment.

Even though sources said players with an existing foothold in Italy are seen as the top candidates, further interest is expected to come from Spain’s Aena, which has recently sought to expand aggressively abroad, including bidding for assets in the UK and Latin America.

A spokesperson for Aena said the company “always analyses all available opportunities with rigor” without elaborating further on the specific deal.

France’s Vinci Airports, Germany’s Fraport, and the Netherlands’ Royal Schiphol Group could also show interest, as well as Abu Dhabi Airports, one source added.

A Royal Schiphol Group spokesperson said that part of its strategy “is to selectively grow our international holdings and maintain its robustness”, declining to comment further. Vinci, Fraport and Abu Dhabi Airports did not respond to requests for comment.

Ferrovial, a major player in the global airports market, is also seen by some sources as a potential candidate, although the company has shrunk its presence in Europe in recent years, exiting Heathrow Airport and AGS Airports. The Madrid-headquartered company has expanded in the US and Turkey, however, where it acquired a majority stake in Dalaman Airport in 2022.

Ferrovial declined to comment on whether it will target SAC.

The privatisation could value SAC in the region of EUR 400m-EUR 500m, based on its EUR 28m EBITDA for 2024, a figure which is expected to have increased in 2025, according to sources, even though passenger numbers remained flat at around EUR 12.3m.

In addition, Catania Airport requires a large investment programme to modernise its facilities of up to EUR 1bn over time, to be largely funded from debt and cash flows, which according to one source makes the deal “almost like a greenfield project”.

“Today’s EBITDA is not really representative of the potential of this airport because it has significant margins for growth, for example on the commercial side,” said the source.

By comparison, 2i Aeroporti-controlled GESAC, the operator of Naples Airport, generated around EUR 77m of EBITDA in 2024, nearly three times as much as SAC, while serving a similar number of passengers.

SAVE Group, whose airports in Venice, Treviso, Verona and Brescia served 18.3m passengers in 2024, generated EUR 129m of EBITDA during that year.

Infrastructure funds are expected to play second fiddle to industrial operators in the privatisation of SAC, given Catania Airport’s much-needed operational improvements that are best handled by a strategic player. Some fund managers could however seek to team up with operators in consortia, sources added.

Once it starts, the privatisation process will begin with a prequalification phase, followed by a non-binding offer phase and a final phase leading up to binding offers.

Plans for a privatisation of SAC have been considered since 2018, but the launch of the process has been delayed first by the COVID-19 pandemic and later by political infighting among local authorities.

SAC in 2022 hired a team of advisors to work on the privatisation process that, in addition to Mediobanca, included Gianni Origoni as legal advisor, Steer as technical and commercial advisor, and Brattle Group as regulatory advisor.

Catania Airport’s privatisation comes as M&A activity in the Italian airport sector picked up over the past two years. In addition to SAVE’s sale, recent deals include Asterion buying a minority stake in 2i Aeroporti from Ardian. The last airport privatisation dates back to 2018, when 2i Aeroporti bought a majority stake in Trieste Airport.