The scheme to widen the UK’s M25 motorway has been attacked by a second Parliamentary body. While the National Audit Office said delays resulted in procurement being affected by the credit crunch, the Public Accounts Committee has focused on a ‘technical mistake’ in assessing the costs of different approaches.
The £5bn Private Finance Initiative for UK search and rescue helicopter services has been cancelled following claims of ‘irregularities’. A member of the preferred bid team – believed to be CHC Helicopter – is understood to have been wrongly given access to ‘commercially sensitive’ information. The matter is now under police investigation.
Swiss-Asia Financial Services, a Singapore-based fund manager with a focus primarily on hedge funds, has officially launched a new infrastructure fund targeting so-called ‘district energy’ assets in China. The fund, which has around €84m in committed capital so far and a target size of €500m, has just made its first investment.
Privately financed infrastructure projects in the UK may have been rated too conservatively according to an infrastructure investment analyst, who calls for a reassessment from the ratings agencies.
Antin Infrastructure Partners, the Paris-based fund manager which closed an oversubscribed debut fund on €1.1bn in September last year, has announced the appointment of Angelika Schöchlin as a partner from private equity firm Terra Firma.
The Russian bank’s private equity team’s plans include a $500m mid-market fund and various types of real asset investment programmes.
3i Infrastructure, the London-listed infrastructure investor, has signed a new £200m revolving credit facility with a five-member banking syndicate. It replaces an equivalent £225m facility due to expire next month, and will be used as a ‘bridge to equity’ to finance future transactions.
Simon Monk, co-founder of Bahrain-based infrastructure investor Instrata Capital, has left the firm due to family commitments and moved back to London, where he previously advised on high-profile deals for UBS Investment Bank. He is currently considering his options.
Despite being labelled as the developed world’s most undeveloped infrastructure market, the United States delivered a higher value of infrastructure transactions than any other nation in 2010, according to InfrastructureInvestorAssets.
Spanish construction firm ACS has announced that its takeover bid for Germany’s Hochtief has proved successful. ACS needed to own at least 30% of Hochtief’s shares by today’s final deadline in order to acquire control of the target on the open market. It has 33.49%.
Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec has acquired a direct 10% stake in Fluxys G, a Belgian natural gas transmission operator. The deal adds to the Canadian pension giant’s growing collection of stakes in gas infrastructure companies.
Equis Funds Group, which is targeting energy and infrastructure opportunities across Asia, is understood to be in the early stages of raising a debut fund.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude says that private parties benefitting from existing Private Finance Initiative contracts must have been ‘laughing all the way to the bank’. The comments will raise fears that the model will effectively be scrapped - amid a lack of clarity over what might replace it.
Investment in energy infrastructure accelerated in the second half of last year, while transport investment slowed, according to full year data from InfrastructureInvestorAssets. Boosting the energy total was the huge Jubail Refinery project in Saudi Arabia.
The bank tops InfrastructureInvestorAssets’ global mandated lead arranger league table for full year 2010. Fellow French-based banks Societe Generale and Credit Agricole Commercial and Investment Bank round out the top three.