ABP'nin olası PE satışı, taşımacılığın mega anlaşma sürecini uzatabilir

ABP's possible PE sale could extend transportation's mega-deal run

Fri, August 28, 2026 at 12:16 PM GMT+3 2 min read

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European transportation buyouts are having their biggest year in recent memory, and the run looks likely to continue.

This week, Apollo Global Management, IFM Investors and KKR reached the final round of bidding for Associated British Ports, a UK-based ports operator backed by CPP Investments and Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.

Bloomberg reported that the PE firms are looking to snap up the pension funds' roughly 64% stake in a deal valuing the business at around £10 billion (about $13.6 billion).

If completed, it would add another mega-deal to a year already defined by a handful of outsized transactions in the transport sector.

PE investment in transportation in Europe reached €12.5 billion (about $14.6 billion) across 70 deals so far this year, according to PitchBook data. This dwarfs the €1.3 billion invested across 121 deals in all of 2025, however, most of the value this year comes from just three mega-deals this quarter.

Apollo agreed to take European budget airline easyJet private for £5.7 billion earlier this month, followed by Lone Star Funds' agreement to acquire ContiTech for €4 billion in July, with a performance-based price of up to €250 million in subsequent years.

The German company makes engineered rubber, thermoplastic and fabric for customers in industries including agriculture and food, construction and the energy and mining sectors.

InfraVia Capital Partners also announced a €1 billion buyout of Athens-based marina operator D-Marin in the same month.

Transportation, one of the mature industries covered in PitchBook's 2026 Industry PE Outlook, is seeing increased investor appetite for above-average returns.

The sector benefits from themes including reshoring and nearshoring, digital transformation and AI, demographic shifts and geopolitical change. Investors also favour the capacity to buy and build scale, consolidating fragmented markets into larger platforms.

This article originally appeared on PitchBook News