The South Fraser motorway is a key element in the Province of British Columbia 'Gateway Program', which will improve highways and bridges throughout the Vancouver metropolitan area. This programme has a significant amount of support on provincial and federal levels.
It is the third time that an Iridium filial has achieved the commercial and financial closing of a concession in North America, in addition to having won two pre-development contracts and been pre-qualified in three other tenders in only four years.
ACS Infrastructure Canada, the Canadian filial of Iridium, the concession promoter company, with a 75% share in the concession and the Canadian company Ledcor Development (with 25%) have signed the concession contract with the Province of British Columbia for financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the South Fraser motorway in the Province of British Columbia in Canada. The financial closure took place on the 1st of August with six banks, Santander, Société Générale, Unicredit, ING, Crédit Agricole and Caixanova. The total amount of contributed private funds comes to 200 million Canadian dollars, including a debt period of twenty years and capital contributions for the shareholders of some 31 million Canadian dollars. The rest of the project funds will come from payments from federal and provincial governments.
The future motorway will be located within a highly dynamic economical centre that is internationally known as the 'Pacific Gateway' and at the intersection of land railway, sea and air transport routes that link Asia with Canada and the United States. The project is inscribed in the 'Gateway Program' that plans an investment of more than 3,000 million Canadian dollars in transport projects intended to improve British ColumbiaÂ’s economic competitiveness.
The project is to commence at the junction of Highway 17 and Deltaport Way in direction of the industrial zones of the city Delta, following the River Fraser and then bordering the residential areas of Surrey and ending at the junction with the new Golden Ears Bridge. This route will connect Highways 17, 1, 91 and 99 and will be the only east-west link communicating the port installations, the industrial areas and the suburban zones of south Vancouver, in addition to ensuring an efficient connection with regional and national networks.
The FTG Consortium, lead by Iridium and Ledcor, includes the presence of Dragados, the leading company in the ACS GroupÂ’s construction area, together with the local Canadian construction companies Ledcor CMI, Bel Pacific and Vancouver Pile Driving.
ACS GroupÂ’s success in the North American concessions market
This commercial and financial closing represents the consolidation of ACS GroupÂ’s presence in Canada after being awarded the project for financing, constructing and operating the A-30 motorway in Quebec for 35 years, with an investment of 1,800 million Canadian dollars. This required the execution of significant works in order to improves transport flows in the area south of Montreal and also with the USA frontier. With hardly four years of presence in North America, the ACS Group concessions promoter has already achieved five projects, the Quebec A-30, Texas I-69, the Florida I-595, Mid-Currituck Bridge in North Carolina and the South Fraser motorway British Columbia and is also pre-qualified for pre-construction tenders for the reconstruction of the Presidio Parkway access highway to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, as well as the construction of the Windsor-Essex Parkway motorway in Ontario and the West by Northwest project in Georgia.
ACS Group is thus continuing its expansion process in North America, which has been defined as a strategic market. It has already been present in the United States through Dragados, its leading company in the construction area, in civil works operations since 2005. This was when it was awarded the first New York Metro expansion, an extensive engineering project to unite the Manhattan Grand Central Station with the Queens district below the River Hudson, with an investment of more than 400 million dollars. Subsequently, Dragados executed further works in the north east of the country for highway and dam improvements, together with the construction of a dyke in Puerto Rico and the first contract for the Miami Airport expansion. In January 2006, it acquired 100% of Schiavione, a company specialising in works construction in the north east of the country and, in January 2009, it acquired 100% of John P. Picone, a construction company in New York State and 100% of Pulice, the largest constructor in Arizona.
Iridium, ACS GroupÂ’s concession company, has been the largest private transport infrastructure promoter in the world for over ten years, with a promotion investment in excess of 30,000 million Euros. The infrastructure and public facilities company participates in over 70 companies having these characteristics that cover the entire value range of concessional business.
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