Bruno Alves
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.
The consortium has abandoned the €1.5bn deal – Romania’s first road PPP – after the government allegedly refused to include some clauses in the contract. The absence of these clauses is said to have jeopardised the team’s ability to secure financing.
The real estate arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has bought 5% of French utility company Veolia Environnement. The acquisition is the fund’s second foray into the French infrastructure market after it acquired 5.78% of VINCI.
Russia’s largest bank, OAO Sberbank, has announced that it will lend VINCI about $1.1bn with a 20-year maturity to help the French infrastructure group build the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, Russia’s second road PPP.
The Moscow-Minsk M1 road, awarded to a consortium comprising Russian and international firms, is close to signing financial close documentation. A bond issue guaranteed by the Russian government covering a significant amount of the project’s cost was instrumental in securing the close.
The UBS International Infrastructure Fund together with CDC Infrastructure has bought a 9.4% stake in Gassled – the owner of the world’s largest offshore gas transmission system – from ExxonMobil.
The Flemish authorities have recently published tenders for two new roads worth over €600m including a new ring road in the Bruges region and part of a highway crossing the country from north to south.