Macquarie acquires major East Coast port terminal

A Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets fund and a Japanese shipping company have acquired the largest terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey.

NYK Ports and MIRA’s Macquarie Infrastructure Partners III have agreed to purchase the Maher Terminals, which was a Deutsche Bank asset but had fallen in value as trade growth slowed during the recession.

MIRA took an 80 percent stake and NYK Ports – 51 percent owned by the Japanese company Nippon Yuesen Kabushiki Kaisha and 49 percent owned by MIRA – bought 20 percent. Deal value was not disclosed.

Maher is a 454-acre terminal that can handle 3 million twenty-foot equivalent units – a standard used to measure cargo capacity – per year. NYK said the terminal’s capacity will likely increase after a project to raise the Bayonne Bridge’s clearance completes in 2017 and more shipping traffic also comes from China and Southeast Asia through the expanded Panama Canal.

Deutsche Bank announced its intent to sell the Maher Terminals in April, after reporting a $1.86 billion value in court documents last year. It had previously been reportedly valued at $2.3 billion.

MIRA closed MIP III at $3 billion in 2014, its fourth unlisted North-America-focused infrastructure fund. Its investors include US and European public and private pension plans, insurance companies, corporations, endowments, foundations and sovereign wealth funds. MIP III invests in transportation, communications, utilities, power, energy and waste management assets. MIRA itself manages over $100 billion of assets in infrastructure, real estate, agriculture and energy.