Bruno Alves
Bruno Alves is the Senior Editor of award-winning publication Infrastructure Investor. Bruno has been a journalist for nearly 20 years and first joined Infrastructure Investor in December 2009, where he quickly rose to become Associate Editor and a leading writer covering the infrastructure asset class. He’s been Senior Editor since 2015 and is also responsible for Agri Investor, PEI Group’s agriculture-focused publication.
A report by Brazilian financial sector association ANBIMA says that the total volume of project finance activity grew by 431% last year, with energy representing the lion’s share of transactions.
A board of directors meeting held at the savings bank yesterday did not yield an announcement on a possible buyout of Abertis. Recent market speculation suggests the deal is evolving away from a buyout and into a straightforward stake sale by shareholder ACS to CVC Capital Partners.
The UK-based investment and advisory group paid around £50m to purchase 'Port Vell' from Spanish developer Global Via.
Vasco de Mello, Brisa’s chief executive, said in a results presentation yesterday that Brisa has been in contact with Abertis regarding the latter’s plans to sell its 14.6% holding in Brisa. News of the possible sale first emerged in the context of a potential buyout of Abertis by its core shareholders and CVC Capital Partners.
Property group AMB, Artha Capital, Mexico Retail Properties and Prudential Financial’s Mexican unit will seek to raise about $1.28bn via the Mexican Stock Exchange. State-backed infrastructure fund Fonadin will invest $253m in the funds, with the rest expected to come primarily from local pension funds.
The board of directors of La Caixa will hold its monthly meeting this Thursday, when it may address a buyout of Abertis together with ACS and CVC Capital Partners. If it doesn’t, the deal’s progress will be pushed back by at least another month, until the board of directors meet again in August.
A successful buyout of Abertis would indicate investors are not as wary of toll roads as many may have thought following the financial crisis, argues Bruno Alves.
The private equity firm may go the extra mile to push the buyout through in the face of a reduced debt package. Keeping Abertis’ credit rating at investment grade post-buyout is another concern, with asset sales being discussed to help fund the deal.
The Deutsche Bank-sponsored fund has acquired an 80% stake in Autovia del Camino from Global Via, Caja Navarra and NEC.
Of the $179bn of assets managed last year by the world’s top 50 infrastructure funds, $109bn - or about 61% - correspond to mandates on behalf of pension funds, reports a survey by Towers Watson and the Financial Times. Macquarie manages the largest amount of pension assets of all alternative asset class managers, at $52bn.