The Sydney Airport (ASX: SYD) share price edged higher today as the airport business released its monthly update for October 2021.
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Traffic numbers
The business remained severely impacted by COVID-19 impacts during last month.
Sydney Airport said that it welcomed a total of 46,000 domestic passengers through its doors in October 2021. This was a decrease of 75.5% compared to October 2020 and a 98.2% decline compared to October 2019.
International passengers amounted to 19,000 for the month. This was a decline of 49.3% year on year, and it was down 98.6% compared to October 2019. Sydney Airport said that international passenger traffic was impacted by border restrictions.
That meant that total passengers came to 65,000 for the month. That was a drop of 71.1% compared to October 2020 and a decline of 98.4% on October 2019.
Could opening borders lead to a recovery?
The business pointed out that from 1 November 2021, international borders were open to Australian citizens and permanent residents who were fully vaccinated. From 5 November 2021 the Victorian and New South Wales borders were opened, allowing free travel between those states.
For the first 15 days of November, Sydney Airport revealed that provisional data indicates international passenger traffic was down approximately 95% and domestic passenger traffic was down approximately 87% on the corresponding period in 2019.
What's impacting the Sydney Airport share price the most?
Sydney Airport investors might be keeping a close eye on what's happening with the prospective takeover.
Earlier this month, Sydney Airport announced that it had entered into a scheme implementation deed with a group of investment and infrastructure funds relating to the IFM Australian Infrastructure Fund, IFM Global Infrastructure Fund, AustralianSuper, QSuper and global infrastructure partners.
Under the agreement, Sydney Airport investors will receive $8.75 cash per share.
This deal values Sydney Airport's equity at approximately $23.6 billion and represents an uplift in equity value of approximately $1.3 billion compared to the initial offer of $8.25. It was a $7.9 billion uplift to the close price of the business day prior to the announcement of that first proposal.
Is the deal going to go ahead?
The Sydney Airport boards have unanimously recommended that Sydney Airport investors vote in favour of the takeover as long as there isn't a superior proposal put forward, and the recommendation is subject to an independent expert concluding that the takeover is in the best interests of investors.
The meetings for shareholders are expected to be held in the first quarter of 2022.
