Shares in Aena, the world's busiest airport company, soared as much as 17 percent on Wednesday as the company listed on the Bolsa de Madrid, in Spain's biggest initial public offering (IPO) since 2007.
Aena owns multiple major airports across Spain, including in Madrid, Barcelona and the holiday resorts of Mallorca and Malaga, and claims to be the busiest airport company in the world by number of passengers. In December the company's airports handled some 12.3 million passengers. By comparison, the U.K.'s Heathrow airport handled an average of 6.1 million passengers per month last year, according to figures on the company's website.
Aena's 8.7 billion euro ($.9.8 billion) IPO on Wednesday was five times oversubscribed and shares jumped as high as 68 euros ($77) from the issue price of 58 euros.