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.