In line with the Juncker Plan objective of bringing more transport infrastructure projects to the market, two years ago the European Investment Bank launched the credit enhancement initiative. Under this initiative the EIB is enabled to support bond issuers in achieving investment grade rating for new project bonds. This will provide additional liquidity to the issuer if required, as well as act as a first loss tranche in case of default.
Since the launch of the Project Bond Credit Enhancement Initiative (PBCE) in 2014, Steer Davies Gleave has successfully acted as Lenders’ Technical Advisor for the A11 Motorway in Belgium and the N25 New Ross Bypass in Ireland where the EIB has provided guarantees.
We can now also report that Steer Davies Gleave has supported the A3 rating recently assigned by Moodys to the financing of the Mestre bypass motorway — a toll road bypassing the city of Venice in northern Italy — which represents yet another success for the credit enhancement initiative. The concession holder Concessioni Autostradali Venete (CAV) is the first issuer in Italy to benefit from the PBCE facility and Steer Davies Gleave has been advising the bond underwriters (Banca IMI, BNP Paribas, RBS, SocGen and UniCredit) as technical and traffic advisor.
The rating was assigned to the EUR 830m senior secured amortising bonds that will be issued in March by CAV. The proceeds of the bonds will be used to refinance CAV’s existing indebtedness linked to the EUR 1bn construction of the Mestre bypass.
Contact Lucia Manzi to learn more on Steer Davies Gleave role in the structuring of Mestre bypass project bond.
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