Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 27 2017
— After strong competition from national and international bidders, the State Government of Sao Paulo on Tuesday announced Arteris S/A Group as the winner of the “Road of the Shoes Industry” concession. Arteris is a consortium comprising Abertis, the world’s biggest road operator, and Canadian investment fund Brookfield.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, advised Sao Paulo State’s Transportation Regulatory Agency – ARTESP – on structuring and tendering the concession, which is the second of four brownfield roads to be concessioned with IFC’s support, totaling 1,730kms of state highways.
For the State of Sao Paulo, which is the largest economic and industrial state in Brazil, the 720km Road of the Shoes Industry highway is a critical transport artery connecting the state’s footwear manufacturing industry with national and international markets. IFC is using its global experience in concessions and infrastructure to bring best international practices and help make this an internationally competitive and transparent process.
“Sao Paulo is innovating and leading the way in Brazil’s infrastructure development,” said
Hector Gomez Ang, IFC’s Country Head in Brazil
. ”Through a transparent, well-structured and competitive process that IFC supported, the State has been able to attract investors to Brazil, even though the country is in a difficult economic situation, and this PPP will bring much needed investment.”
As part of their bid, Arteris will invest nearly $1.7 billion in the Road of the Shoe Industry. The consortium also offered an upfront concession fee of about $500 million, which will provide revenue to the state budget, which can be used for other priority investments in Sao Paulo’s health, education, or transport sectors.
The previous road also successfully concessioned, the 570km Sao Paulo Mid-West highway, which IFC also helped structure and tender, was awarded in March 2017 to Patria Investimentos, which is 40% owned by global investment fund Blackstone, marking the first time an investment fund placed a stand-alone bid for a road concession in Brazil.
Patria Investimentos offered a concession fee of nearly $400 million and will invest about $1.3 billion over 30 years.
“These results, which are already setting new benchmarks in terms of concession fees and international participation, show that well-structured and competitively tendered infrastructure projects can not only attract global interest in Brazilian infrastructure, but can also secure new sources of financing for the country,” said Gomez Ang.
Over the next few days, the Special Bidding Commission will assess the Arteris bid guarantee, as well as other documents required of the bidder. The concession contract is expected to be signed before the end of June 2017.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. Working with 2,000 businesses worldwide, we use our six decades of experience to create opportunity where it’s needed most. In FY16, our long-term investments in developing countries rose to nearly $19 billion, leveraging our capital, expertise and influence to help the private sector end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
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