Wellington International Airport Limited Analysis

Overview

Wellington International Airport Limited is one of New Zealand's three main airports, which caters for approximately 5 million passengers per year and 100,000 aircraft. In 1998 the Crown sold its shareholding, 66% to listed infrastructure company Infratil Limited and 34% to Wellington City Council, a specialist investor in infrastructure and utility assets.

Infratil is listed on the NZX and owns airports in New Zealand and Europe, as well as electricity; waste to energy; and port investments in New Zealand and Australia. Since Infratil became a shareholder the Airport Company has invested over $250 million in its facilities.

On 2 December 2008, Wellington International Airport was listed on the NZDX following an initial offering for $50 million fixed rate bonds with the ability to accept over subscriptions of up to $50 million. As at 22 December 2008, $50 million unsecured unsubordinated five year, fixed rate bonds were fully subscribed. The top three bondholders include FNZ Custodians (11.71%), TSB Bank (9.2%) and Westpac Institutional Bank (5.52%).

WIA derives its revenue through three different streams: passenger revenue, property revenue and aeronautical revenue. The investment statement indicates an upward graph trend in increasing revenue over the past 11 years from between $6-7m in 1997 to around $30m in 2008 in passenger and property revenue alone.

Performance

The following information was extracted from Wellington International Airport Limited's Full Year results, released on 8 May 2025:

Wellington Airport releases Full Year results to 8 May 2025:

The last twelve months have seen significant strategic advances and transformational projects underway.

The signs of this are visible all around the airport, including the terminal and retail improvements underway, new carpark, runway upgrades, the new Airport Fire Station taking shape and our new brand.

Strong international passenger growth has supported another solid earnings year, in spite of a slowdown in domestic passenger numbers caused by airline fleet availability issues which have constrained capacity across the network.

International passenger volumes were up 7.4% on the prior year while domestic traffic dropped 3.9%.

Focus remains on maintaining efficiency across the business with our costs being managed well despite ongoing challenges from rates and insurances.

Strong performance across all areas of the business have driven an EBITDAF of $130.2 million, up from last year’s $107.1 million. The net profit after tax result is $25.8 million. We’ve also worked carefully with our airline partners to set out our development programme in new infrastructure investment over the next five years. This year has seen the commencement of this work with significant aeronautical and commercial capital investment of $117.4 million.

In March 2025, the Group offered $125 million of retail bonds, used to fund future capital investment, refinancing and general corporate purposes. The offer was fully subscribed and issued in April 2025.

Retained earnings was $58.2 million, an increase for the year of $13.8 million. The increase reflects net profit after taxation of $25.8 million and the dividend paid to shareholders during the year.