Macquarie refinances M6 toll road in the UK
Macquarie Atlas Roads announced that Macquarie Motorways Group, the holding company for the M6 toll road in the United Kingdom, has completed a debt refinancing for the project.
Several sources indicated a month ago that Macquarie Motorways Group, owner of the U.K.'s M6 Toll road, was seeking help from a London court to extend about £1 billion (US$1.6 billion) of loans. A company representative, said that the refinancing would provide the M6 Toll road with a sustainable capital structure for the medium term and a firm platform for future investment in the road.
The company wanted to push back the maturity of its debt to June 2020 from 2015 and creditors voted on the proposal on Dec. 6.
Now, the refinancing is official and under the terms of the refinancing, the debt has been reorganised and has a new maturity date of 1 June 2020. Macquarie Atlas Roads will remain the owner of Macquarie Motorways Group and will receive a small annual fee for continuing to manage the asset. MQA does not expect to receive further equity distributions from the project as all surplus cash flows from the asset will be applied to service the new debt.
The M6 toll road is part of the national network and was built by Midland Expressway, 100% owned by the Macquarie Atlas Roads, who will operate and manage it until 2054 when it will be handed back to the Government.
The project had an initial investment of £900 million (US$1469 million) in order to design and build the M6 Toll Motorway, which opened to traffic in December 2003, on budget and six weeks ahead of schedule.
Country news
-
-
December 19, 2013
Bilfinger Berger Global Infrastructure acquires three projects in Northern Ireland
Bilfinger Berger Global Infrastructure SICAV S.A. (BBGI) announced in early December that it has signed an agreement with Graham Investment Projects Limited to acquire additional equity and subordinated debt interests in three assets, being Lagan College, Tor Bank School and DBFO-1 Road Service (M1 Westlink), all of which are in Northern Ireland. Read more -
December 19, 2013
GCP Infrastructure Investments invests in two energy projects debt in the UK
GCP Infrastructure Investments, the UK listed infrastructure fund focused primarily on investments in UK infrastructure debt, confirmed last week that the company has subscribed two loans for a biomass project and an onshore wind project. Read more -
December 20, 2013
Aviva commits 500 million to invest in UK infrastructure projects
Aviva announced yesterday that it is making an immediate allocation of £500 million to invest in UK infrastructure projects. This commitment is a direct result of the recent agreement on Solvency II, the European wide insurance regulation, which provides greater regulatory and political certainty for insurers to invest in infrastructure assets. Read more -
December 23, 2013
John Laing Infrastructure Fund ends the year with three acquisitions
John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF), the listed infrastructure investment company, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of the remaining stakes in three assets from Bouygues UK, resulting in 100% ownership of each asset. Initial stakes in the assets were acquired as part of JLIF's £123 million portfolio acquisition from Investors in the Community LLC (IIC) earlier this year. Read more -
December 26, 2013
Financial close reached for Virgin Islands wastewater project
Barclays has provided a US$43 million project finance facility for the construction of a seawater desalination plant storage and wastewater treatment facilities in the British Virgin Islands. Read more
