Bruno Alves
An independent commission unveiled its recommendations yesterday for setting up a state-backed UK green investment bank. They include the creation of a new category of green bonds to satisfy a ‘real demand’ among pensions and insurers ‘for a new type of long-dated instrument’.
The Dutch construction company has been named preferred bidder for the €260m A12 motorway, in the Netherlands, beating competition from consortia led by DIF and Strabag. Financial close is expected in September.
The consortium, which also includes Star Capital, is now in advanced negotiations to purchase HSBC’s rolling stock unit – valued at about £2bn. The sale is expected to be concluded by the end of summer with a club of over 10 banks providing a staple finance package to the winner.
Economic planning council minister Christina Liu says she wants the private sector to fund 30% of the $124bn the Asian tiger's plans to spend on infrastructure over the next eight years. She is also inviting foreign investors to discover a local debt market with a ‘huge amount of capital available’.
The 30-year fund plans to raise at least €115m to invest in Benelux infrastructure. Unlike their first fund, DG Infra+, the new vehicle will focus on annual cash distributions to investors with the fee structure linked to the fund’s annual yield. Five investors have already committed €80m to the fund, which is targeting its first close in September.
The regulatory change will allow the Indian private equity firm to more easily borrow at lower costs in addition to increasing the amount it is able to lend to third parties.
The Portuguese firm will sell its entire stake in Brazilian toll road operator CCR for €1.2bn – roughly 6.5 times more than the €185m it spent buying into CCR in 2001. It intends to partly use the money to replicate CCR's success in other geographies.
But concrete details on the creation of a green investment bank, priority projects and measures to stimulate greater private sector investment in infrastructure are deferred until the autumn.
The Japanese manufacturing company’s pension fund, which manages 87 billion yen of assets, is reportedly planning to target domestic and international real estate investments for the first time since 2006.
Partner Michael McGhee said at a transport conference in Barcelona that the fund manager plans to increase the airport’s debt-to-regulated asset base ratio to between 60% and 65% from its current 43%.