Ardian, the independent private investment company, has announced the signing of an agreement to acquire the shares of Ascendi Group in Ascendi PT II, the joint venture in Portuguese motorways.

Ascendi PT II was formed in June 2015 as a partnership between Ardian Infrastructure and Ascendi, and owns and operates five motorways in North Portugal and the Lisbon area.

As part of this new transaction, Ardian Infrastructure will take control of the five jointly held assets, as well as two additional toll roads from Ascendi. Ardian will pay Ascendi a total consideration of €600 million (US$665 million), to which €53 million can be added via a variable price mechanism. Ardian will also acquire the operational and maintenance companies associated with the motorways.

The Ascendi network is the second largest motorway network in Portugal, stretching more than 850 km across the seven toll roads.

The full list of Ascendi Group assets wholly acquired by Ardian is as follows:

• Ascendi Norte – Auto-Estradas do Norte, S.A.
• Ascendi Beiras Litoral e Alta - Auto-Estradas das Beiras Litoral e Alta, S.A.
• Ascendi Costa de Prata – Auto-Estradas da Costa de Prata, S.A.
• Ascendi Grande Porto – Auto-Estradas do Grande Porto, S.A.
• Ascendi Grande Lisboa, Auto-Estradas de Grande Lisboa, S.A.
• Ascendi Pinhal Interior - Estradas do Pinhal Interior, S.A.
• Ascendi Douro – Estradas do Douro Interior, S.A.
• Autovia de Los Viñedos, Sociedad Anonima Concesionaria De La Junta De Comunidades De Castilla – La Mancha

The agreement is subject to some operations of corporate reorganization at Ascendi Group level, as well as regulatory and contractual approvals.

In the acquisition Ardian was advised by Caixa BI and Santander on financial matters; Cuatrecasas, Goncalves Pereira on legal matters; PWC on accounting and tax aspects and ALG on technical matters.

Mathias Burghardt, Member of the Executive Committee and Head of Infrastructure at Ardian, said:

“Ardian Infrastructure has always placed huge importance on building relationships with industrial partners and further developing them over time. In the case of this Portuguese motorway network, we initially invested alongside Ascendi and worked with them closely over the last year. It’s a testament to this relationship and Ardian’s long term investment strategy based on industrial expertise that we have now been offered to take the operating control of the network.”