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%.
A recent move by the Oregon Investment Council gives pensions in the US plenty of reasons to follow suit.
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.
The energy investor has raised its largest fund ever at $3.5bn after around nine months of fundraising. The fund was strongly backed by US public pensions.
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.
Ballooning funding costs are forcing the Portuguese bank to deleverage, leading it to sell a €2.6bn portfolio comprised mostly of project finance loans. However, sources close to BES say the bank will remain active in project finance.
Australia’s Future Fund has made further increases to its real estate, private equity and infrastructure portfolios as its overall assets under management grow past the A$70 billion (€50.6 billion; $69.4 billion) mark for the first time.
Parliament has approved a law which will retroactively cut tariffs in the Spanish photovoltaic sector by 30%. Local trade bodies have promised to fight the new law all the way to the European Court of Justice.
As a recent Congressional hearing shows, examples of great infrastructure deals matter a lot in public debate over PPPs. Cast your vote in Infrastructure Investor’s annual awards poll to let the world know which deals merit attention.
The UK-based development finance institution has committed $30m to the African Infrastructure Investment Fund 2. The latter is targeting a final close of $600m and will invest in transport and energy projects.
The Middle East’s largest private equity firm has launched a joint venture entity with Saudi gateway investment body Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), to invest SAR2bn in the country across sectors including real estate, private equity and infrastructure.
The €1.1bn infrastructure fund has acquired independent energy producer Neolectra’s French assets from ArcLight Capital. Neolectra has close to 40 assets throughout France, including district heating plants, gas distribution networks and renewable and fossil fuel power generation plants.