ST. LOUIS — An adviser to the city of St. Louis expressed skepticism about big-name bidders seeking to privatize Lambert airport after initially praising them, new documents show.
The records give a window into the city's evaluation of the 18 teams that responded to a request for qualifications to operate the airport. Mayor Lyda Krewson late last year indicated she would kill the privatization process, and followed through in January, before the companies could submit bids indicating what they'd pay in a public-private partnership. The city estimated that it could net $468 million to $1.2 billion from a deal to use for "non-airport purposes," the Business Journal reported last week.
Eleven teams were seriously considered and granted interviews, according to a report by New York investment bank Moelis & Co., one of the city's privatization advisers.
Before the city's working group on privatization could interview the teams, Moelis evaluated their responses to the RFQ. Fifteen of the 18 teams were said to have "passed" the city's criteria, including STL Aviation Group, led by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Transportation Infrastructure Fund, and Momentum Aviation Partners, headed by Partners Group of Switzerland. STL Aviation tied for the highest score, and Momentum was No. 4.
STL Aviation was praised for having "40+ years of airport operations experience across 12 countries, managing the development and operations of nearly 50 airports including 12 within the U.S." Momentum had carried "52.3 million passengers in 2018 across 16 airports in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Columbia," and, through its partner, ASUR, had experience with the only other privatized airport under a Federal Aviation Administration program, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the report said.
But after the interviews, held from Nov. 21 to Nov. 26 at the Magnolia Hotel downtown, the fortunes of the two consortiums changed, according to the records.
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