HICL Infrastructure buys stakes in Dutch roads and prisons

5th Jan 2017 07:05

(ShareCast News) - HICL Infrastructure Company has bought stakes in two Dutch public-private partnership projects from Ballast Nedam, a construction and engineering firm, for a combined €21.3m.The FTSE 250 infrastructure investor bought a 20% stake in the A9 Gaasperdammerweg road project and the remaining 25% interest in the Zaanstad penitentiary project in the Netherlands that it did not already own.The €21.3m, which is funded from existing cash resources, includes a loan stock subscription that would be payable once construction of the road project is finished and was provided using the company's existing revolving credit facility.HICL currently has about a £6m funding surplus but has committed about £200m to buy a third of Northwest Parkway, a toll-road in Colorado in the US and a 13.8% stake in the A63 motorway project in France, both of which are expected to complete in the first half of 2017.The €574m A9 project is part of the Schiphol-Amsterdam-Almere corridor programme to increase the capacity of the motorways to the south and east of Amsterdam, with the concession to end in 2038. Construction and maintenance works are being undertaken by Ballast, which retains a 5% stake and also provides management services, Heijmans and Fluor, with construction scheduled to complete in 2018.Meanwhile, construction on the the Zaanstad project, a new correctional facility with a capacity of about 1,000 detainees, was completed in March 2016 and maintenance works are currently being undertaken by Ballast.