Bankstown, Camden airports up for sale

The owners of two Sydney Basin airports have decided to sever their involvement with General Aviation.

BACH is a consortium of several institutional investors which purchased the newly privatised Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park airports as a package back in 2003.

Hoxton Park was closed and the land converted to residential purposes three years ago.

Last night BACH said it was putting the two remaining airports up for sale, again as a package.

The vendor describes the assets as "key commercial, industrial and aviation infrastructure... with stable, long-term cashflows and potential for growth".

That's all reasonable, but the truth is that politically motivated constraints on development prohibited the realisation of the potential of Bankstown Airport (the more valuable asset).

BACH is in effect admitting that it has lost hope of extracting full value from the investment. 

Potential purchasers are likely to be aware of the diminished value of the principal asset; but there may be some who believe that the political interference in Bankstown's development can be reduced over time.