SYDNEY: Three investment consortia — two involving Gulf Arab government-owned funds — plan to lodge indicative bids for Australian state-owned toll road company Queensland Motorways Ltd today, sources close to the transaction said.
The sale, estimated by analysts to fetch about A$5bn ($4.5bn), would further the push by Australian state governments to sell off large infrastructure assets to pay for capital works programmes. State governments, once hesitant to give up tax revenue by selling infrastructure, appear to have had a change of heart since the state of New South Wales sold its desalination plant for $2.3bn in 2012.
“What this is all about is asset recycling,” Robert Clarke, a partner at law firm Corrs Chambers Wesgarth who specialises in infrastructure transactions, said.
The bidders for Queensland Motorways include a consortium led by Australia’s Hastings Funds Management which also includes sovereign wealth fund the Kuwait Investment Authority, Spanish toll road operator Abertis Infraestructuras and Dutch pension fund APG Algemene Pensioen Groep, said two sources close to the deal who could not be identified as the negotiations were private.
Transurban Group, a major toll road operator in New South Wales and Victoria states, will team up with superannuation fund AustralianSuper and state-run Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to make another bid.
A third bid will involve IFM Investors, which is owned by 30 Australian superannuation funds, with Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Borealis Infrastructure, the sources said.
Queensland Investment Corp, the government body selling the 70km network, said first round bids were due today. Reuters
