BAA, which owns London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, reported a 5.2 percent rise in pretax profit, as expected, after higher sales at airport shops helped to offset the impact of the July 7 bombings in London and a strike at Heathrow. "It looks a pretty good performance. They are doing the right thing, getting the retail revenue up, getting the costs down and still doing well from Heathrow," BNP Paribas analyst Nick van den Brul said.
BAA said pretax profit for the six months to end-September was 366 million pounds ($650.7 million) compared with 348 million a year ago. The result excluded the impact of investment property revaluations and accounting changes, which drove down the net profit result.