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Macquarie Airports has agreed to sell its stake in Aeroporti di Roma to Gemina for almost three times what it paid in 2003.

The Sydney-based fund and its Macquarie Airports Luxembourg affiliate will sell their 44.7 percent stake for 1.2 billion, or $1.6 billion, according to a statement.

Macquarie Airports may use proceeds from the sale to pursue acquisitions in France, Eastern Europe, New Zealand and the United States, or return funds to investors, according to a report by analysts at UBS. The Milan-based Gemina and Macquarie Airports called for an arbitrator last month after clashing over the amount of money required to invest in Aeroporti di Roma.

“While this decision has been a difficult one given our preference to hold investments for the long term, we believe that it is an attractive offer and is in the best interests of our security holders to accept,” the Macquarie Airports chief executive, Kerrie Mather, said.

Macquarie Airports will focus on its airport investments in Sydney, Copenhagen, Brussels and Bristol and continue to participate in the privatization of airfields, she said. The fund had bought its stake for 480 million.

“We estimate Macquarie could have more than 2 billion dollars of excess cash flow over the course of 2007,” Craig Stafford, an analyst at UBS in Sydney, said in a report Thursday.

Gemina owns 51 percent of Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the Fiumicino and Ciampino airports in Rome.

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