concessions

Abertis has closed on the buy from OHL of its three tollroad concessions in Chile according to an announcement from its head office in Barcelona:

- Autopista de Los Andes, Ruta 60, 19km connecting Los Andes city north of Santiago to Limache Ruta 5 the great north-south highway and northern Chile 2001-2033

Most public toll road operators are pretty open with their traffic and revenue data, more so than some private operators. This has been frustrating Robert Bain, RBconsult and University of Leeds researcher specializing in analysis of traffic and revenue forecasting.

Massachusetts Turnpike service plazas will not be privatized in a longterm concession. The state's transportation secretary (called Executive Office of Transportation) and the Turnpike CEO Jeff Mullan concurred in deciding this week to reject the bids made in a recent concession procurement.

Investor groups interested in tollroad concessions are putting their pitch in Washington DC for equity to play a major role in reviving the economy. They say $180 billion is available that could generate between 600k and 2m jobs in the US.

Democrat leaders in the Congress James Oberstar and Peter DeFazio write today that the financial markets crisis has heightened their concern over public private partnerships (P3s) and innovative finance, especially what they call "the lack of adequate transparency and public interest protections under these deals."

Private equity group Blackstone is establishing an infrastructure fund and they say it will be looking at tollroads as investments. The New York based group has recruited several former Macquarie specialists including Michael Dorell and Trent Vichy.

Macquarie, a major Australian investment bank, has suffered a major loss of capitalization in the recent weeks, and is retrenching to preserve liquidity. They have announced the sale of their concession on a major bridge in Lisbon Portugal.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-09-30

China Infrastructure Investment Corporation one of hundreds of investor-owned toll road companies in China is different in that it is now traded on the NASDAQ in New York (trading symbol CIIC). Incorporated in Nevada, it is headquartered in Henan province in China.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission at a meeting today approved a staff proposal to advertise for expressions of interest in a toll concession to build three remaining sections of the connected Mon-Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway projects south of Pittsburgh. They constitute some 83km (51.6 miles) of expressway with a project cost of about $5.2b, the Turnpike says in a statement issued after the meeting.

A report commissioned by the Democratic Caucus of the state House slams Governor Rendell's proposed longterm lease/concession for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, claiming that a corporate concession will have a present value of only $14.8 billion vs the Turnpike Commission (PTC) under Act 44 being worth $22.8b to $26.5b at present value. (CORRECTION HERE 2008-03-04 12:30 We initially misread the report.

Beijing's Xinhua news agency reports attempts by the central government of China to assert control over provincial government initiatives in building tollroads.