The acquisition of BAA by Ferrovial two years ago ranks alongside BMW’s purchase of Rover as one of the worst takeovers by a foreign company.

Rafael del Pino, the head of Ferrovial, spent £10.3 billion buying the British airports operator in July 2006 and has had nothing but trouble since.

The Spanish company is now burdened with £17 billion of debt from the acquisition and has to find nearly £1 billion a year just to pay interest.

Concern over Ferrovial’s ability to pay off the BAA debt has caused the company’s share price to fall by nearly half in the past 12 months, wiping £3.75 billion off its value.

Once again, the curse of the “English patient” has struck a foreign company that has dared to buy one of our national institutions.

When BMW lifted the bonnet on Rover after it bought the British car-maker in 1994 the Germans discovered numerous problems that had been hidden or ignored for years.

Rover is estimated to have cost BMW about £1 billion and, after ten years of failure, the remnants were sold to venture capitalists and then to the Chinese.

Ferrovial’s problems began when Mr del Pino decided that he had to diversify the company out of Spain before the country’s housing boom collapsed.

Ferrovial was established by the del Pino family in the 1950s and had grown into a conglomerate of industrial assets including airports, car parks, toll roads and construction. The acquisition of BAA was its biggest achievement as the British company was substantially larger. The deal had to be financed almost entirely by debt, although that was easy to put together in the booming credit market of 2006.

However, when the credit crunch began to bite last year and interest rates rose, Ferrovial’s debt became a crippling problem.

The Spanish have spent the past year trying to refinance their debt, but have so far failed to do so. Financial analysts have said that BAA may run out of money later this year if Ferrovial does not succeed in refinancing.

On top of these financial problems Ferrovial has had to deal with the relentless criticism of BAA and the poor quality of its airports.

A succession of senior executives have departed, including the chief executives of BAA and Heathrow, as Ferrovial has attempted to get to grips with Britain’s crumbling airport infrastructure.

The company is now caught between having to increase investment in its British airports to fend off criticism of poor standards while cutting costs to afford its interest payments. It has started to sell assets including World Duty Free, which was bought by Autogrill from Italy for £546 million, and airport property to further cut its debt.

Many City analysts believe that Ferrovial may actually welcome a Competition Commission ruling that forces it to sell one of its airports as a way to reduce its debt to a more manageable level.

Gatwick is the most likely to be sold, as its expansion opportunities are limited until 2019. It could raise more than £2 billion at auction for its owner.

Possible buyers are already casting an eye over the airport with a view to making a bid. They include a number of large infrastructure funds run by investment banks as well as other foreign buyers. Dubai Aerospace is understood to be interested in acquiring Gatwick, but no bidder is likely to emerge before the various inquiries into Britain’s airports have been concluded.

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