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

  • Tolling is still stuck on the sidelines says ASECAP speaker
    August 19, 2015
    Geoff Hadwick attended ASECAP’s 2015 Study Days meeting in Lisbon and found a frustrated European tolling sector undertaking some soul searching. The international road tolling industry its failing to make it case and the sector is losing out to a range of other socio-political lobby groups according to International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) chief executive Pat Jones. Speaking at the recent 2015 ASECAP Study Days conference in Lisbon, Jones issued a stark warning: “Tolling is still o
  • Indra picks up €75m dynamic toll system deal in US
    October 31, 2019
    Indra has been awarded a €75 million deal for work to switch a major US roadway to dynamic pricing.
  • The red light camera choice: 60 killed or save US$231 million a year
    June 5, 2015
    David Crawford investigates new cost-benefit analysis of red light cameras. US states can now realistically calculate the economic benefits of using red light safety cameras, alone or in combination with other measures, to cut road traffic accident levels. The results could be of material value in making the case for the cameras as a number of state legislatures continue to debate their acceptability.
  • Slow development of Europe's road user charging
    April 24, 2013
    Delegates convened in Brussels for Europe’s 10th annual Road User Charging Conference in March, when both positive and negative developments came to light for advocates of more widespread introduction of RUC. Jon Masters reports. Goings on across Europe in recent months have again demonstrated how very sensitive road user charging (RUC) is politically. At the 10th annual Road User Charging Conference in Brussels at the beginning of March, a Danish delegation was notable for its absence, but Belgian governme