The Board of Directors of TAIPED, a member company of the Superfund, during today’s meeting proceeded to unseal the financial offers in the context of the tender process for the award of a service concession contract for the financing, operation, maintenance and exploitation of the Attica Road for a period of 25 years .

The six (6) investment schemes submitted the following financial offers (in alphabetical order):

  • ABERTIS INFRAESTRUCTURAS SA – 2,700,000,000 euros.
  • GEK TERNA SA – 3,270,000,000 euros.
  • Association of persons BRISA – AUTO ESTRADAS de PORTUGAL SA – RUBICONE MIDCO, BV –INTRAKAT AE – 2,050,050,908.21 euros.
  • Association of persons MACQUARIE ASSET MANAGEMENT MOTORWAY HOLDINGS S.ar.l. – FINCOP INFRASTRUCTURE LTD – 2,350,000,000 euros.
  • Association of persons VINCI HIGHWAYS SAS – VINCI CONCESSIONS SAS – MYTILINEOS S.A. – MOBILITY PARTNER SAS – 3,106,000,000 euros.
  • Association of persons ACTOR CONCESSIONS S.A. – AVAX SA – MERIDIAM EASTERN EUROPE INVESTMENTS 4 SAS – 2,548,000,000 euros.

TAIPED will proceed with the control of the financial offers in accordance with the conditions of the tender and the above Preselected Investors will be informed of the progress of the tender process.

As MR wrote earlier, the publicizing of the tenders, a practice that is not usual, is done according to the Fund’s cycles in order to ensure full transparency of the process and at the same time ensure the maximum possible price for the State. The offered prices will be made public in alphabetical order and not based on their amount, as in the next few days the thorough control of the financial details of each proposal will follow as provided for in the call for tenders. Then TAIPED will invite those candidates who may have submitted an offer that falls short by up to 5% of the highest, to submit, together with the highest bidder, improved offers.

The unsealing of the binding bids is made possible as none of the candidates finally submitted an objection within the prescribed period, which expired on Wednesday afternoon.

The new concession contract will have a duration of 25 years and according to market sources the price may exceed 2 billion euros. According to sources from the TAIPED administration, special importance is also attached to the smooth transition to the new company that will take over the concession, in order to ensure the continuous smooth operation of the road axis.

There are six candidates vying for the concession of the Attica Road. These are GEK TERNA, the Spanish Abertis Infraestructuras, the joint venture of Brisa Autoestradas de Portugal and Rubicone Bidco, from Portugal and Great Britain respectively, together with Intrakat, the Macquarie joint venture with Fincop Infrastructure, interests of the Copelouzou group, the joint venture of Mytilineos, Vinci Highways, Vinci Concessions and Mobility Partner, and finally the joint venture of the current concessionaires Aktor Perachores and AVAX with Meridiam Eastern Europe. In the final phase, two more investment schemes were qualified, Gruppo Fininc-inc SPA and Vauban-dif-egis, which, however, did not finally submit binding offers.

Key elements of the new concession contract are the reduction of tolls to 2.5 euros from 2.8 today, but also the right of the concessionaire to request an increase after the first five years of the contract have passed, upon submission of relevant, documented traffic studies and other application data.

The intense investment interest, as found, is attributed to the attractive yields ensured by the exploitation of the road axis in question. It is typical that the current shareholders of the concessionaire company, that is Ellactor (65.7%) and AVAX (34.2%), it is estimated that from 2016 until the year 2022 they have collected funds of the order of 600 million euros with in the form of dividends and return of capital. For the year 2022, the distributed dividends are of the order of 46.8 million, in addition to the pre-dividend of 30 million, i.e. a total of 76.8 million euros.