Cardiff airport

I don't agree with Rowe Beddoe. If the airport returns to profit that profit should be reinvested for the benefit of the taxpayer who paid out initially.

You don't necessarily need to hold on to it to recoup the cost of the initial investment! There are two ways to recoup the cost. One is to hold the asset and have the stream of profits as you say. But the other is to sell it when it looks likely to generate sustainable profits - companies will pay a good price to have that stream of profits. If profits are the same whether it is held by the government or sold to the private sector, in effect the government would get an equal amount (appropriately discounted) either holding it or selling it. Just the profile of profits would differ.

The first question then is who is better able to generate profits. Is it the government? Or is it the private sector?
And then there is the question of whether the government owning it creates conflicts of interest (e.g. tax policy, or environemntal policy).

Yeah good points, its just that if the Airport goes private too soon, bearing in mind the private sector company got the airport into such a mess that it required a bailout in the first place, it may go back to how it was. I think what is not needed is that it becomes the airport equivalent of Trigger's Broom.

Manchester councils own the airport there so is that a model that could be adopted moving forward. I am not sure of the details so maybe a complete non-starter.

If the WG do sell then it should be to an operator who can demonstrate a long term development plan. When TBI (or was it abertis) acquired CWL it was part of a package of other airports they did want

You don't necessarily need to hold on to it to recoup the cost of the initial investment! There are two ways to recoup the cost. One is to hold the asset and have the stream of profits as you say. But the other is to sell it when it looks likely to generate sustainable profits - companies will pay a good price to have that stream of profits. If profits are the same whether it is held by the government or sold to the private sector, in effect the government would get an equal amount (appropriately discounted) either holding it or selling it. Just the profile of profits would differ.

The first question then is who is better able to generate profits. Is it the government? Or is it the private sector?
And then there is the question of whether the government owning it creates conflicts of interest (e.g. tax policy, or environemntal policy).

Not following that logic. If, by some miracle, Cardiff airport was privatised and made billions, all the cash would be creamed off by shareholders interested in short term returns.

The state will have propped it up with tax payers' cash through the difficult times, and been denied a return on its investment. That's not only poor value for money, but bordering on scandalous. In other countries the N worid (nationalisation) works quite well, and doesn't instil this dogmatic, practically Pavlovian anti attitude. Some might say that's it's important that parts of the national infrastructure should not be held to the whim of the markets anyway.

The logic is this. Imagine I have an asset that is expected to generate profits of X a year.
You can keep the asset and get the stream of profits of X a year. In "discounted terms", that stream is worth X/r today, where r is the discount rate / interest rate. e.g. if X = 1, r = 0.05, then the stream of profits is worth 20 today.
Or youcan sell it. Because the stream of profits is worth 20, someone else is willing to pay 20 for it.
20 = 20, so its the same.

You are saying "If, by some miracle, it made Billions".. Its something that will be priced into the "expected stream of profits", albeit given a very very low weight in forming those expectations, because as you say it would be a miracle. Of course, if that miracle came true - the Welsh Govt would have lost out.
But you could also say, "If (as is probably more likely) it falls back into losses", then the Welsh Government would have avoided those losses. And the Welsh Government would therefore have done better by selling it up front, and baking those profits.

You have to think about expected flows of profits - and recognise there is both upside and downside risk around this. If you sell it up front you could end up losing out if it turns out to be more profitable than expected when you sold it. But you win if it turns out to be less profitable than expected or turns out to be loss making.

The point I was making was that the mean/expectation of what will happen is that the Welsh Government will neither win nor lose. And that if the Welsh Government wanted to know for certain what it would get, its probably better to take a certain sale price than a stream of uncertain profits with an equivalent expected value.

Flybe have announced a new route to Verona for next summer. Very handy for Venice and Lake Garda. The report on Walesonline states it will fly on Saturdays which seems to suggest that you will have to go for a week oe am I missing something?

Also increasing flights to Milan and Faro to four times a week.

Verona is a great city, especially great the Opera season! If it is weekly then the best way to get there and back is to use Milan - around 90 mins on the express train. Cannot think of a better way to spend 90 mins, great coffee, stunning scenery & a fast train.

Have to hand it to the Airport & airlines, they are giving it a go so good luck to them.

Flybe have announced a new route to Verona for next summer. Very handy for Venice and Lake Garda. The report on Walesonline states it will fly on Saturdays which seems to suggest that you will have to go for a week oe am I missing something?

Also increasing flights to Milan and Faro to four times a week.

Verona isn't that far from milan

I've been to Verona and Milan so know that they are not too far on the train. However I would have thought that most people travelling to Verona with Flybe would be going to Lake Garda for a long weekend (it's about 20 mins on the train from Verona ro Desanzano on the southern edge of the lake). That was the thought that immediately popped into my head as soon as I saw this.

It may put people off if they have to transfer from Verona to Lake Garda and then return via Milan. If its well used perhaps the flights will increase. Any way you look at it I suppose it's progress.