General Electric Co. has emerged as a surprise participant in the battle to buy British airports operator BAA Plc, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Monday.
BAA, which is fending off an 8.75 billion pound ($15.33 billion) hostile takeover bid from Spanish construction firm Grupo Ferrovial, said on Sunday it had also spurned a 9.4 billion-pound approach from a consortium led by U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The report, citing UK government sources, said General Electric's name was not in Goldman's consortium at this stage but that they were expecting it to get involved. (MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC, which is a GE company.)
The newspaper also said separate sources had told it that GE, whose businesses range from credit card financing to servicing jet engines, had expressed interest in BAA several weeks ago.
The Daily Telegraph said GE would not comment, while a spokesman for BAA also declined to comment on Monday.
Representatives of Goldman Sachs could not be reached when contacted by Reuters.
European airports have been drawing investors attracted by a highly visible, long-term outlook predicting traffic in Europe will double by 2020 to 2 billion passengers.
BAA fought off Germany's Hochtief in December to buy control of Hungary's Budapest airport from the state for $2.2 billion.
BAA is the latest in a string of British firms to attract foreign bidders amid a global boom in takeover activity.