Macquarie, PSP Investments and Aberdeen to battle in Greek motorway tender

Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets, PSP Investments and Aberdeen Asset Management are among nine bidders to submit expressions of interest to buy Greek motorway Egnatia Odos.

The Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 5 is one of three parties listed to be preparing a sole bid. PSP Investments, which plans to invest in the asset via its Roadis platform, is teaming up with local group Aktor Concessions, while Aberdeen has formed a consortium through Aberdeen European Infrastructure Partners II, Intertoll Europe – in which it holds 49.9 percent – and Greek firm J&P-Avax.

Other bidders to express interest in the asset include VINCI  and China’s Sichuan Communications Investment Group, as well as Deutsche Invest Equity Partners, which agreed a €231.9 million deal in December alongside Belterra Investments and Terminal Link for 67 percent of Thessaloniki Port, Greece’s second-largest container port.

The tender for Egnatia Odos is based on a concession contract rather than an outright privatisation. The winning bidder will be responsible for the “financing, operation, maintenance and exploitation of Egnatia Odos”, according to Greece’s privatisation agency HRADF. The motorway network began operating in 2009, covering 658km from the northwest Port of Igoumenitsa  up to the Greek-Turkish border in the northeast.

The privatisation agency also said last week that it has received binding bids for 66 percent of DESFA, the Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator. MIRA was also among those to express its interest in the asset last year, although the final bidders are consortia comprising Snam, Enagás and Fluxys against Regasificadora, Transgaz, Reganosa Asset Investments and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.