It has been anounced that Macquarie/Ferrovial (via their South West Airports Consortium) have withdrawn their bid to buy Exeter Airport.
SWAC were the preferred bidders but following much business and political protest in the far southwest the whole thing was referred by the EU to the OFT in the summer on the grounds of a joint owner for BRS and EXT being anti competitive. Only last week Flybe put in its three pennorth and said it didn't think the sale should be allowed to go through.
The regulatory enquiry that was put in train as a result of the OFT referral was not expected to report until next spring and SWAC say they cannot wait that long so have pulled out.
A Macquarie spokeswoman was quoted by Bloomberg, "There's been no decision against it, but the process just kept dragging on and it's a very small acquisition from our perspective."
I always believed that a jointly owned BRS and EXT would have brought more to EXT than to BRS. Now it seems that Macquarie/Ferrovial will have to put all their efforts in the south west into further developing BRS without having EXT as part of the equation.