The government may set limits on airport privatization after Macquarie Airports bought 20 percent of the terminal operator at Haneda, Tokyo's main domestic hub.
"We're discussing measures for airports that would ensure their safety," Hisayasu Suzuki, director general of Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau, said in an interview Tuesday. "The airlines have a rule protecting them from investors taking stakes of more than 30 percent."
The government may keep a so-called golden share of Narita International Airport Corp. with special voting rights when it offers stock in Japan's largest international airport to the public, Suzuki said. The aviation bureau will propose new rules covering the country's airports in the next regular Diet session.
"Having a golden share would ensure that long-term operations are stable," said Osuke Itazaki, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo. "That would be in the country's national interests."
A group led by Sydney-based Macquarie Airports, including parent Macquarie Group Ltd., boosted its stake in the operator of Haneda's main building, Japan Airport Terminal Co., to 19.9 percent in October.
Unlike the operator at Narita, Japan Airport Terminal doesn't own the runways at Haneda, Suzuki said. Still, "the buildings are indispensable to the runways," he said. "We decided to include Haneda in our considerations along with Narita."
Any new regulations would affect Haneda, the world's fourth-busiest airport, along with Narita, Kansai International Airport near Osaka, Central Japan International Airport Co. near Nagoya and other domestic airports.
The government may sell shares in Narita Airport in the fiscal year starting in April 2009, according to airport President Kosaburo Morinaka. Suzuki declined to say when the sale may take place.
Macquarie Airports' other airport stakes include 72 percent of Sydney Airport Corp., 54 percent of Brussels Airport Co., 32 percent of Bristol International Airport in the U.K. and 53 percent of Copenhagen Airport A/S.