GIP to snap up Edinburgh airport in £850m deal Sources claimed Tiaa-Cref recently dropped out of JP Morgan's consortium which may have weakened its tilt for the Scottish capital's airport. BAA, a division of the Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial, has been forced to sell Edinburgh after regulators decided it controlled too much of the UK market. The company was ordered to off-load three of its airports. Some of the other parties that looked at buying Edinburgh airport - which handled 9.5m passengers last year, caters for about 40 airlines and serves more than 100 destinations - included private equity firms, Carlyle and 3i. The private equity groups dropped out, apparently because of the high price the asset was commanding. The price tag is considered impressive by analysts since the airport currently generates around £50m before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (ebitda) on sales of £110m. But, unlike other airports, the price is not hampered by the "regulatory asset base" or RAB which is a proxy value for the asset set by the regulator. Meanwhile,experts said the price is not unreasonable in an environment where infrastructure assets are in hot demand. BAA and GIP both declined to comment.