M&G's Araujo 'not ready to give up on airport infrastructure' despite sell-off

Hubs still have a future post-Covid, manager argues

M&G Investments' Alex Araujo has said he is "not ready to give up on airport infrastructure" yet, despite having reduced his exposure to the sector during March's market sell-off.

Airlines and, as a consequence, airports, have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, amid a global grounding of planes as economies locked down to stem the flow of the pandemic. In the US, for instance, total passenger numbers fell from 2.3 million on 3 January 2020 to a low of just 87,534 on 14 April, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Araujo, who runs the £298m M&G Global Listed Infrastructure fund, said airports was a sector he was "struggling with conceptually", noting some "very obvious structural challenges [in the] short-to-medium term...