Ardian Fund IV fuels up with €80m Italian road stake

Ardian has acquired a 49 percent share of Autovia Padana, the company which operates the A21 Piacenza-Cremona-Brescia motorway.

The French firm will pay €80 million for the stake to Satap, the company which manages the A4 Turin-Milan and A21 Turin-Piacenza motorways, and Itinera, a developer controlled by Italian holding ASTM.

Both entities will respectively retain 50.9 percent and 0.1 percent of Autovia Padana upon completion of the deal. Itinera will continue to act as a contractor responsible for delivering the company’s capex programme and maintenance works.

Ardian will fund the deal through its Infrastructure Fund IV, a €2.65 billion vehicle closed in January 2016. Infrastructure Investor understand the fund will be about 60 percent invested upon completion of the transaction, though the firm declined to comment on vehicle deployment.

The deal seals a “strategic” partnership between SIAS Group, the company that owns Satap, and ASTM that will look to make further infrastructure investments in Italy, Ardian said.

The news comes days after the firm exited French developer and operator Aloe Energy to JPMorgan-backed Sonnedix. Ardian had created the platform alongside Debiopharm Investment and Aloem in December 2014.

Last month, the firm also agreed to acquire 35 percent of LBC Tank Terminals from Aussie funds State Super and Sunsuper, marking its third US dollar-denominated investment after it purchased three Chilean solar plants and one in Peru in September.