An American suitor

the fifth, which valued Wood at £1.66 billion (€1.84 billion), 59 per cent more than the share price before the first offer was made.

The board of directors lis‐tened to Wood’s investors ‐mainly big institutional funds ‐ and decided to open the books to Apollo.

This follows a steady de‐

STATE‐OWNED airports operator Aena is putting out to tender a five‐year, €1.5 billion contract for pri‐vate security.

What is possibly the Administra‐tion’s largest‐ever services con‐tract, seeks approximately 5,500 security guards and 2,000 assis‐tants for Aena’s 45 airports, two helipads and Murcia aerodrome.

They will be required to provide adequate security at Aena airports which foresee 286 million arrivals during 2023, rising to 288 million in 2024, 301 million in 2025 and 315 million in 2026.

Insiders familiar with the con‐tract specifications said in the Spanish press that this offered the option of an additional year, to provide the chosen companies with as much stability as possible.

Getaways

DESPITE the cost‐of‐living cri‐sis, spending on flights and holidays rose in the first three months of 2023.

Details from more than 24 million UK bank accounts showed a 27 per cent year‐on‐year rise on package holiday bookings, and a 36 per cent in‐crease in spending on airfares, according to analysis by digital advertising platform Cardlyt‐ics.

cline in Wood’s share price, partly to the problematical £2.2 billion (€2.5 billion) takeover of US engineering giant Amec Foster Wheeler, and attempts to diversify from oil and gas.

The original deadline for a decision has now passed and has been moved to May 17.