A consortium led by Spain’s Abertis has set a new infrastructure record after the US state of Pennsylvania accepted its $12.8bn bid for a 75-year lease on the 500-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike. The huge amount involved – three times the previous record – is likely to excite the interest of other US states with toll roads. The team won a second round of bidding earlier this month after the top two bids came within 10% of each other. Abertis, a toll road operator, Citi Infrastructure Investors, Citigroup’s infrastructure arm, and Criteria Caixa Corp, Abertis’s largest shareholder, together beat a $12.1bn final offer from a consortium of Goldman Sachs and Australia’s Transurban. A consortium of Australia’s Macquarie and Cintra, another Spanish toll road operator, was excluded from final bidding after offering $8.1bn.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 5:37 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, Private equity. Tagged with Abertis, cintra, goldman sachs, macquarie, Transurban. Edit this entry.