John Laing Infrastructure Fund has spent close to £23m to acquire a 50% stake in a Scottish hospital PFI from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The fund has also extended a revolving credit facility with Royal Bank of Scotland by £35m.
Nine members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have contributed $335m to a fund that will finance major infrastructure projects in the region. The Asian Development Bank is committing $150m to the vehicle.
Spanish developer ACS has sold 50% of Tunel San Cristobal and 46.5% of Vespucio Norte to the Toronto-based investor. The developer is also looking for buyers for its 100% stake in Florida’s €1.2bn I-595 highway.
The Canadian fund manager has chipped in with a $20m loan for the $117m expansion of Tecon Salvador, a container facility in Bahia. The facility, currently operating at maximum capacity, will be able to accommodate more and bigger vessels post-financing.
Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec has spent €210m increasing its stake in Fluxys to 20%. The investment will help fund Fluxys’ acquisition of two European gas transport pipelines for €858m.
As an asset class, infrastructure may one day be as big as real estate – assuming the latter doesn’t annex much of the former
BBVA and KfW IPEX are providing €120m of debt to help fund the refurbishment, operation and maintenance of 46.5km of Germany’s A9 highway. Vinci and BAM PPP will contribute €12m in equity with the German government providing the €88m balance.
Alex Price, chief executive of real estate manager Palmer Capital, says his firm’s new UK solar park fund – which is aiming to raise £52m – could herald a trend of real estate funds targeting the renewable energy infrastructure space.
Estradas de Portugal, which doles out the availability payments for Portugal’s road PPPs, may not be able to finance itself starting in 2013. The agency’s bank debt is set to rise to €4.2bn by 2015 and since most of it is short-term, there is a chance the agency won’t be able to refinance.
The UK PFI developer and investor has reached its target of £150m for its second core infrastructure fund – and has now set a new target of £250m by the end of this year.
The EU-focused infrastructure fund manager is in the race to build, operate and maintain a 49km stretch of the A66 highway alongside Spanish companies FCC, Sacyr and COMSA. Five other teams, one of which includes Meridiam, are also bidding for the highway.
India Infrastructure Finance Company, Life Insurance Corporation of India and India Development Finance Corporation have agreed to take out up to 50% of an infrastructure project’s debt to unblock some $6bn of new funding.
The German developer will list the fund on the London Stock Exchange in November and will use proceeds to buy a portfolio of 20 mostly operational seed projects from its own concessions unit. The fund will not charge fees on future deals.
The Spanish transport minister has told Parliament the government intends to award Madrid and Barcelona’s airports before the November 20 elections. His comments come after the main opposition party’s shadow transport secretary said he would try to stop the privatisations.
Bahrain’s Muharraq wastewater treatment plant public-private partnership has reached financial close. The $320m project, led by a consortium including Abu Dhabi fund manager Invest AD, is the first PPP to reach close in the Middle East this year and Bahrain’s first such deal in the wastewater sector.