A consortium of seven banks, including BNP Paribas and Royal Bank of Scotland, last Tuesday launched syndication of a credit to finance the $3.8 billion acquisition of Indiana Toll Roads by Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte and Macquarie Infrastructure Group. The $4.1 billion deal is broken into three tranches: a nine-year, $3.248 billion tranche "A" to be used for the acquisition and other purposes; a nine-year, $150 million tranche "B" to be used as a liquidity line and a nine-year, $665 million tranche "C" to finance road improvements. Pricing starts below LIBOR plus 1% according to a banker.
BBVA, Banco Santander, Caja Madrid, Depfa and Dexia are also part of the bank group providing the financing. Cintra and Macquarie contributed a combined $760 million in equity for the company. The remainder will be financed by the $3.248 tranche "A" of the credit facility. The acquisition gives Cintra and Macquarie control of operating and maintaining the road for the next 75 years.
Cintra, a subsidiary of Ferrovial and based in Madrid, Spain, is a private-sector developer of transport infrastructure that manages over 2,000 kilometers (approximately 1,243 miles) of toll roads. Calls to a spokesman for Indiana Toll Roads were not returned. Spokesmen for Cintra and Macquarie could not be reached by press time.