Financial close for Meridiam’s second Turkish hospital

Meridiam Infrastructure (Meridiam), the Paris-based fund manager, has reached financial close on the Yozgat Education and Research Hospital Project.

The milestone, which follows the firm’s recent closing of the Adana Integrated Campus, announced in December, marks Meridiam’s second such project in Turkey. Yozgat also stands to become the first hospital public-private partnership (PPP) to start operations in the country.

Commercial close on the project was achieved in August 2014. The agreement signed then between the Turkish Ministry of Health and the project company called for the design, construction, financing and operation of the 475-bed facility, which entails a building phase of 24 months followed by a 25-year operating period.

Meridiam and local developer Rönesans Holding managed to seal the long-term financing deal solely with international commercial lenders, which the French firm said in a statement is a first for Turkey’s project finance market. The funding includes an 18-year senior loan totalling €110 million as well as equity investments by the shareholders of the project company.

The transaction comes at a busy time for Meridiam. The firm last week won a bid to revamp New York’s LaGuardia Airport, a project budgeted at $3.6 billion and billed as North America’s largest current PPP.

The announcement closely followed the refinancing achieved by Meridiam, Acciona and Cintra on Spain’s A66 project, for which the three companies won a 30-year concession agreement in 2010.