Arcus Infrastructure Partners reports “very good progress” with its refinancing of portfolio company Angel Trains as three UK rolling stock firms look to take advantage of bond market enthusiasm.
Eiffage has dropped the idea of a capital increase to service debt for toll road APRR while preserving its credit rating. This was a solution that Macquarie, which jointly owns APRR with Eiffage, did not support. The two firms have now agreed on a dividend payment that will allow them to service some €80m in debt.
Guarantees made by Russia to clinch its first PPPs may not be conventional, but they are necessarily pragmatic.
Ten Iberian banks and the European Investment Bank have provided a debt package of €1.2bn to close one of the last projects that forms part of Portugal’s €5bn roads programme. Despite its recent downgrade and pressure from the financial markets, pricing on the funding remained the same.
The Russian development bank says it will buy back up to 70% of a planned $340m bond issue to help fund the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway – the first Russian road PPP to reach financial close. It also said it will continue negotiations to get the EBRD on board the project.
In this fourth annual ranking of the world’s largest private equity firms you will find many familiar names and placements but also some notable shuffling in the ranks, reflective of a dramatically changed fundraising market as well as the rise of specialist and emerging markets strategies.
The financial services firm has bolstered its energy, infrastructure and utility team in London by recruiting Jeremy Harris and Mark Lillie.
The $850m Odintsovo bypass has become the second Russian road PPP to reach financial close. As with the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, a bond issue guaranteed by the Russian government was instrumental in securing the close.
The chief executive of Emirates NBD Capital said in an interview that the bank is gearing up to launch an infrastructure fund to capitalise on a $500 billion infrastructure opportunity in the Gulf region.
Balfour Beatty has sold stakes in two Scottish PPPs to Barclays Integrated Infrastructure Fund and a subsidiary of Kelda Water for £24.1m.
The $2.1bn Moscow-St. Petersburg highway has become the first Russian road PPP to reach financial close. Sberbank and Vnesheconombank have provided ruble funding for the project which includes a bond issue guaranteed by the Russian government.
Raj Rao, one of the founding members of Global Infastructure Partners, has been elected as its newest partner. The fund has also added two new senior hires to the team, including a global head of fundraising, as it prepares to raise a second fund.
The new government of the French-run tropical island has abandoned a planned tram PPP in favour of a road. A Bouygues-led consortium, which won the project last December, is now seeking reparations to the tune of €200m.
The club of around 20 commercial banks working on Slovakia’s D1 highway PPP are prepared to guarantee about €800m of a €1bn EIB loan while the government awaits state aid clearance from the EU to cover the loan. Dutch pension managers APG and PGGM will invest directly in the project.
AMP Capital Investors and Brookfield Investment Management recently hired Charles Hamieh, formerly of fund manager Hastings, to join their jointly owned global listed infrastructure team.