Vinci Concessions, a subsidiary of France’s construction conglomerate Vinci Group, and the ABN AMRO Highway private equity fund have been named preferred bidders for the Slovak Republic’s R1 expressway concession.
The concession, structured as a public private partnership (PPP), is worth an estimated €1 billion, Vinci said in a statement.
Under the terms of the concession, the Slovak Ministry of Transports, Posts and Telecommunications will act as the grantor for a 30-year contract to build, design, finance and maintain a four-section, 52-kilometre expressway in the Central European nation. The ministry will remunerate the Vinci-ABN AMRO consortium via availability payments over the life of the concession.
The Stavby Silnic a Zeleznic, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eurovia, also a member of the Vinci Group, will do the construction work for the expressway.
The R1 expressway is one of a number of PPP road projects currently underway in Slovakia. Several sections of the country’s D1 motorway are also undergoing PPP procurement processes and Vinci has pre-qualified and submitted bids for two of them.
If successful, Vinci’s procurement of the R1 and D1 concessions will further consolidate its presence in central and eastern Europe, where the company earned revenues of €2.3 billion in 2007. The company is the world's biggest private private operator of motorway and car park concessions.
The Slovak Ministry of Transports, Posts and Telecommunications and Vinci were not available for comment at press time.
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