Skip to main content

Infrastructure investors line up for Indiana toll road

According to a report by Reuters, some of the world's largest pension funds and infrastructure investors are forming consortia to bid for the operator of an Indiana toll road that filed for bankruptcy last month. Indiana agreed in 2006 to lease the 253 kilometre highway, billed as the Main Street of the Midwest, for 75 years in return for US$3.8 billion. It stretches across the northernmost part of Indiana from Ohio to Illinois, linking Chicago with the largest cities on the eastern seaboard. While f
October 16, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
According to a report by Reuters, some of the world's largest pension funds and infrastructure investors are forming consortia to bid for the operator of an Indiana toll road that filed for bankruptcy last month.

Indiana agreed in 2006 to lease the 253 kilometre highway, billed as the Main Street of the Midwest, for 75 years in return for US$3.8 billion. It stretches across the northernmost part of Indiana from Ohio to Illinois, linking Chicago with the largest cities on the eastern seaboard.

While former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels described it as the deal of a lifetime, opponents fought the agreement all the way to the state's Supreme Court, arguing the state was surrendering an important revenue stream.

However, almost as soon as the deal closed, the US slid into a deep recession and has been slow to recover from a financial crisis in 2008. Traffic volume on the toll road in 2013 was 10.7 per cent below the 2007 level, according to documents filed with the US Bankruptcy Court in Chicago.

Among the players cited in the report are 5428 Cintra, 4419 Ferrovial, 1813 Autostrade Meridionali and 6605 Abertis Infraestructuras. An auction is expected to kick off next month and a deal will probably value the road at $4 billion to $5 billion.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Kapsch preliminary preferred vendor for Ohio bridge toll project
    September 16, 2014
    The Kentucky-Indiana Joint Board has unanimously selected Kapsch TrafficCom as the preliminary preferred proposer in the competition to provide an electronic toll system for the bi-state Ohio River Bridges project. The board’s action followed independent staff reviews of technical and financial proposals submitted by the competing firms. Kapsch was one of six interested companies that the board in January deemed qualified to submit proposals for the toll system provider (TSP) contract. The Indiana Fin
  • Progress in talks on new Sydney toll road
    October 10, 2013
    Toll roads operator Transurban says it has made good progress in its talks with the New South Wales government on a US$2.5 billion tunnel proposal for Sydney's north. The proposed project would be a tolled motorway linking the M1 Pacific Motorway, formerly the F3 freeway, at Wahroonga to the M2 toll road at West Pennant Hills. The project involves the construction of new eight kilometre tunnel, which would be the longest tunnel of its kind in Australia. “We have made significant progress in our disc
  • Brazil infrastructure concessions tempt investors
    June 22, 2015
    Private sector players are interested in US$45.8 billion of infrastructure concession projects planned as part of the second round of the country's logistics improvement program PIL. According to planning minister Nelson Barbosa, who said each of the concessions had attracted the attention of at least two potential bidders, the government was working to award tenders based on the highest canon payment offered as opposed to the lowest tariff and to reduce the 49 per cent participation of national airport
  • Ptolemus' short guide to picking an ITS winner
    January 11, 2024
    What makes a good ITS investment and what are the chances of the money coming into transportation creating an unsustainable bubble? Frederic Bruneteau and Alberto Lodieu of Ptolemus Consulting Group take a look at the market and suggest some key areas of interest for the future