BAA, the airports operator, is in talks to sell a half-share in a swath of warehouses and offices around Heathrow for about £600 million.

Ferrovial, the Spanish construction group that bought BAA for £16.3 billion last year, has hired Morgan Stanley to handle the sale of its half-share in BAA’s Airport Property Partnership. Talks involving several bidders are at a “sensitive stage,” one source said.

The deal is likely to include a sale of BAA Lynton, the company’s wholly-owned property development unit headed by John O’Halloran. It would be the largest sale of industrial property in Britain for more than a year.

The combined value of the partnership fund and BAA Lynton is thought to have risen from about £1 billion before Christmas to nearly £1.2 billion.

The fund carries about £400 million of debt.

It is thought that Slough Estates – rebranded SEGRO – and Brixton, two of Britain’s largest industrial developers, have shown interest. Other potential bidders include Macquarie Goodman, the highly acquisitive industrial property landlord, which in April bought Rosemound for £336 million.

Rents for industrial warehousing around Heathrow have surged over the past six months, while capital values have also accelerated as institutional investors chase limited stock of prime industrial space around the world’s busiest international airport.

The jewel in the crown is the BA Cargo Centre at Heathrow, covering 400,000 sq ft and is possibly worth £250 million.

In total, the Airport Property Partnership owns about 35 properties – mostly industrial – 17 development sites and six other aviation-related interests, wrapped in a Jersey-based property unit trust.

About 80 per cent of the property is around Heathrow, west of London, most of the rest at Gatwick, south of the capital, and small amounts at Stansted and Aberdeen. The sale could also include BAA’s 7 per cent stake in the Airport Industrial Limited Partnership, a venture between BAA Lynton and Scottish Widows valued at about £250 million.

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