SPANISH infrastructure group Ferrovial is on the verge of winning a four-month takeover battle for Southampton Inter-national Airport owner BAA with an 11th hour bid worth £10.3 billion.

The world's biggest airport operator, which also owns Heathrow and Gatwick, was at the centre of a dramatic late-night auction between Ferrovial and a rival bid by investment bankers Goldman Sachs.

It is understood that Ferrovial tabled an offer worth 950p a share, which is poised to be recommended by the board of BAA today.

Goldman Sachs had offered 5p more per share, but with conditions. The other two partners in the Spanish consortium are CDP, the Canadian pension fund investment group, and GIC, the private equity arm of the Singapore government. Yesterday's auction started at 9am and was still going more than 12 hours later.

A takeover of BAA by Ferrovial will hand control of seven UK airports, including Southampton, pictured, where BAA has more than 120 employees, to a foreign company.

Ferrovial is expected to sell off most of BAA's overseas interests to help finance its takeover.

BAA accounts for 63 per cent of all airline passengers flying into and out of the UK. In the London area it has a virtual monopoly, controlling 92 per cent of the market. The Office of Fair Trading is considering launching an investigation into BAA's monopoly.

That could result in it being referred to the Competition Commission and ultimately broken up. There were more than 39,500 passenger aircraft movements at Southampton last year, with tens of millions of pounds generated in the local economy.