Serious contenders are starting to surface for the sale of a major stake in Queensland Airport Limited, with Stonepeak Partners LP, Global Infrastructure Management, LLC and KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR) all said to be running the ruler over the infrastructure offering. Queensland Airport owns regional airports including Gold Coast, Townsville, Mount Isa and Longreach Airports.

Initially, a 40% stake was on offer through Barrenjoey and thought to be worth more than $1 billion, but now that the sale has changed path to be 74% of the business on offer, the thinking is that the asset becomes far more attractive. The larger share means that active infrastructure investors will now be keen to compete because they have operational control. Stonepeak, KKR and GIP, along with DEXUS (ASX:DXS), which owns the former AMP Capital infrastructure business, are the groups believed to be giving an acquisition serious thought.

Shareholders are listed as The Infrastructure Fund, Perron Investments, Australian Retirement Trust, Allan Moss, Queensland Airport Investments, Project Cricket State Super Unit Trust, and Lipno Holdings. It comes as the sale process for a stake in Perth Airport is expected to get under way imminently. Earlier, it was expected that the investment bank overseeing the sale of a stake, UBS, would not run a sale process.