lease

KPMG the large Swiss-based international accounting and management consulting firm has been selected by the Ohio state DOT to conduct a study of alternatives to the state turnpike commission for operation of the Ohio Turnpike.

Republican candidate for governor of West Virginia Bill Maloney says the state needs to look at selling the Turnpike or putting it out to the private sector on a longterm lease. "We need to think differently than we have before. I don't have all the answers, but there are a lot of people with answers," he told the Beckley Register-Herald recently.

"We need to look at other states and see what they have done," Maloney said.

Ohio governor John Kasich is moving ahead with plans to lease the state Turnpike under a longterm toll concession contract. Enabling legislation passed as part of a budget House Bill 153 just ahead of the July 4 holiday. The legislation gives the state Director of Budget and Management primary responsibility for the procurement of a private concessionaire to take over control of the Turnpike from the present politically appointed Ohio Turnpike Commission.

Ohio governor John Kasich is again speculating about the possibility of concessioning off the state Turnpike. He told a journalists' group in Columbus Thursday: "Wouldn't it be fantastic if I could take … the turnpike, if I could privatize it and generate as much as $2.5 billion, potentially? We'll see. If we can't get it, we probably won't do it."

He said he wanted $3 billion so that after retiring its debt of $500m or so he'd have $2.5b.

Ohio governor John Kasich told a meeting of business leaders in Cleveland that a longterm lease of the state Turnpike would raise an estimated $3 billion. After retiring the Turnpike's debt of $600m he said the state would have $2.4b that could be used to lower taxes or other debt of the state.

It takes three Reuters reporters to get the story completely wrong. They say in a piece running today that "the Abertis-Citigroup team let their Turnpike privatization offer lapse after a series of polls showed it was unpopular with voters."

American Trucking Associations (ATA) issued a statement Friday titled "ATA Applauds the Introduction of Anti-privatization Legislation" before the text of the bills (S884 and S885) were released, or any announcement made by the sponsors of the bills, suggesting ATA has an inside role. Sponsors of the bills according to the ATA are US Senators Jeff Bingaman (Dem NM) and Chuck Grassley (Repub IO).

A six month old public toll highway authority is just a few weeks away from issuing a request for expressions of interest for a toll concession for the design, finance, construction and operations of Jefferson Parkway a 20km (13 mile) tollroad northwest of Denver. The Jefferson Parkway is a missing link in the '470 beltway' around the Denver area. It will go from CO128 in Broomfield to CO93 at W58Av north of Golden (see map nearby.)

Abertis is better off not having had its $12.8b accepted for the Pennyslvania Turnpike concession, according to a leading European concessions analyst. In an email this morning Steven Fernandez, who follows concession stocks for Exane BNP Paribas says that the deal was generally perceived in European investment circles as too expensive for Abertis' good.

Exane BNP Paribus is a large European securities firm head-officed in Paris.

Abertis board of directors decided today to let their joint bid with Citi for the Pennyslvania Turnpike lease expire. They had twice previously extended the bid of $12.8 billion from the initial expiry date of June 20 in the hope of getting legislative approval for their deal with Governor Rendell. The deal which would have given the Abertis-Citi group a 75 year toll concession formally expired for lack of enabling legislation 5pm eastern time (09/30 17:00).