Nouvelle Autoroute 30 closes $1.2 billion refinancing, largest transportation P3 bond offering in Canadian history

On June 14, 2018, ACS Group, through its Canadian subsidiary, ACS Infrastructure Canada, Inc. (Iridium), successfully closed the $1.218 billion (EUR 797 Million) offering of Senior Notes in a comprehensive refinancing of the project debt for its Autoroute 30 concession project. The refinancing was targeted mainly at large insurance companies and pension funds across Canada and the United States. The bond issuance was oversubscribed more than three times and is considered the largest transportation P3 bond deal in Canadian history.

The A30 project, a 42-kilometre, four-lane divided highway by-passing the Island of Montreal on the south shore with a total investment value of $1.94 billion, opened to traffic in December 2012. The project also includes the operations, maintenance and rehabilitation of an additional 32 kilometres of an already existing portion of the Autoroute 30. The Project is a hybrid income stream based on both availability payments paid by the Province of Quebec as well as toll revenues collected from the project. ACS and TIAA, through their investment platform, owns 50% of the Project, while ACS manage the day-to-day operations of the asset.

Gowling WLG acted for Nouvelle Autoroute 30 General Partnership and its partners Acciona, S.A. and Grupo ACS in this refinancing with a team led by Luc Lissoir (corporate / infrastructure / project finance) and that included Daniel Lacelle (tax matters), Pierre Lissoir (offering memorandum), David Kierans (2008 Credit Agreement compliance), and Georgi Paskalev and Joey Suri (project documentation review).