Cintra Macquarie out of bidding for Penn Pike

Cintra and Macquarie one of the three known teams bidding for the Pennsylvania Turnpike lease have dropped out of the bidding. They have told their bankers they are free to work with the remaining bidders on the best and final offers due this Friday.

Cintra and Macquarie said they weren't prepared to increase their bid, so they won't be making any Best And Final Offer.

"They told us the numbers didn't cut it," one of the bankers said.

Remaining bidders are thought to be Abertis the large European toll operator and Transurban-Goldman Sachs, a combination of Australia's largest toll operator and the Wall Street bank.

Cintra and Macquarie spokesmen told us they can't comment. As long as the procurement is under way they are precluded from comment by contractual commitments to the state of Pennsylvania.

BACKGROUND: Under Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, Cintra has often been the most aggressive bidder in tollroad concessions in north America. He led the team that developed the 407ETR all electronic tollroad in Toronto Canada and is active in Texas. Macquarie the Sydney Australia based but now international bank and funds manager with heavy interests in tollroads bid low in Toronto and only bought into 407ETR later. Macquarie partnered with Cintra to win the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road concessions, Cintra doing the operations.

Macquarie has standalone ownership of the Dulles Greenway in northern Virginia and the South Bay Expressway in San Diego California.

Transurban which pioneered the all electronic Melbourne CityLink tollroad and acquired major tollroads in Sydney has preferred negotiated concessions to competitive bids in north America. They negotiated the Pocahontas Parkway concession in Richmond Virginia and with Fluor negotiated their way into being the major equity holder on the Capital Beltway and I-95/395 toll projects in northern Virginia.

Abertis has been a conservative bidder and doesn't yet have any interest in US tollroads.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-05-13