The refinancing of Metro Ligero Oeste S.A. (“MLO”), the concessionaire of the ML2 and ML3 light rail lines in Madrid, reached financial close on September 29 2022, becoming one of the largest refinancings for a transport concession project to complete in Spain in recent years. The transaction involved raising around EUR 615m of debt from 19 banks and institutional investors to refinance existing loans provided by domestic banks over a decade ago to finance the construction of the project.

The refinancing of Linia Nou Tram Quatre S.A., the concessionaire of Barcelona´s subway Line 9 Tranche 4 (“L9T4”), reached financial close on December 23 2020, becoming one of the largest transport deals to complete in Spain in recent years, and the largest refinancing to date for a transport concession project in Catalonia -only behind Queenspoint´s EUR 725m refinancing of Linia Nou Tram Dos S.A. (“L9T2”) in October 2019. The L9T4 refinancing transaction involved raising EUR 553m of new debt from 13 commercial lenders to refinance existing loans provided by commercial banks over a decade ago to finance the construction of the project, as well as unwinding the existing interest rate swaps. The European Investment Bank (“EIB”) novated and extended its EUR 168m tranche. The debt package comprises a bank loan tranche, a dual-tranche private placement and an EIB tranche. The 10-year floating rate commercial bank loan was provided by Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese banks and institutionals. German, French, Portuguese and Spanish investors subscribed to the 18-year private placement, which has floating and fixed rate tranches. The EIB novated and extended its tranche to fall in line with the private placement. The L9T4 sponsors are Queenspoint, an investment vehicle owned by Allianz and Danish pension fund Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegpension (ATP), with 36.5%; funds managed by Dalmore Capital and Equitix, each holding 6.75% following the JLIF takeover last year; and Global Borealis (a holdco owned 80% by Brookfield and 20% by ACS’s concessions arm Iridium) with a total 50%. Goldman Sachs acted as lead arranger, whilst BBVA was co-arranger. Clifford Chance acted as the sponsors’ legal adviser, while Risk Management Solutions acted as sponsors´ hedging coordinator. Lenders’ advisers included Allen & Overy, TYPSA, Willis and KPMG. The concessionaire, Linia Nou Tram Quatre S.A., holds the concession until 2040 for designing, building, financing and maintaining 13 stations of Tranche 4 of Line 9 of the Barcelona automatic subway system which, once completed, will be the longest automatic subway line in Europe. The grantor is IFERCAT, the railway authority of the regional Catalan government. Queenspoint also holds 36.5% in Linia Nou Tram Dos, S.A. (“L9T2”, the concessionaire of Barcelona´s subway Line 9 Tranche 2), 36.5% in Linia Nou Manteniment, S.A. (“L9M”, the operator for both L9T2 and L9T4), , and 20% of Metro Ligero Oeste S.A. (“MLO”, the concessionaire of Line 2 and Line 3 of Madrid´s light rail system). Queenspoint refinanced L9T2 last October 2019 by raising EUR 725m in new debt from European and North American banks and institutional investors.

The refinancing of Linia Nou Tram Dos S.A., the concessionaire of Barcelona´s subway Line 9 Tranche 2 (“L9T2”), reached financial close on October 4 2019, becoming one of the largest transport deals to complete in Spain in recent years, and the largest refinancing to date for a transport concession project in Catalonia. The L9T2 refinancing transaction involved raising EUR 725.6m of debt to refinance existing loans provided by commercial banks over a decade ago to finance the construction of the project, as well as unwinding the existing interest rate swaps. Seventeen lenders participated in the refinancing, the majority being institutional investors from Europe and North America. Of the seventeen investors in the book, three were existing lenders -Spanish banks Caixabank, BBVA and Sabadell- which provided one of the three tranches of the new debt package. This tranche is a 10-year EUR 170m floating rate loan with a margin of 2.75%. The new debt package also comprised two long-term 18-year private placements, which were subscribed to by fourteen institutional investors. The larger of the two private placements is a EUR 415m fixed-rate tranche, and the smaller is a EUR 140m floating-rate tranche. The margin of the long-term debt is 3.5%. Investors in the private placements are from Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the US. The L9T2 sponsors are Queenspoint, an investment vehicle owned by Allianz and Danish pension fund Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegpension (ATP), with 36.5%; funds managed by Dalmore Capital and Equitix, each holding 26.75% following the JLIF takeover last year; and ACS’s concessions arm Iridium, holding the remaining 10%. Goldman Sachs acted as lead arranger, whilst BBVA was co-arranger. Clifford Chance acted as the sponsors’ legal adviser, while Risk Management Solutions acted as sponsors´ hedging coordinator. Lenders’ advisers included Allen & Overy, TYPSA, Marsh and PwC. The concessionaire, Linia Nou Tram Dos S.A., holds the concession until 2042 for designing, building, financing and maintaining 15 stations of Tranche 2 of Line 9 of the Barcelona automatic subway system which, once completed, will be the longest automatic subway line in Europe. The grantor is IFERCAT, the railway authority of the regional Catalan government. Queenspoint also holds 36.5% in Linia Nou Tram Quatre, S.A. (“L9T4”, the concessionaire of Barcelona´s subway Line 9 Tranche 4), 36.5% in Linia Nou Manteniment, S.A. (“L9M”, the operator for both L9T2 and L9T4), , and 20% of Metro Ligero Oeste S.A. (“MLO”, the concessionaire of Line 2 and Line 3 of Madrid´s light rail system).

Spanish infrastructure firm Queenspoint has appointed Pablo Borrego Walker (pictured) as its general manager. Queenspoint is a 5050 investment vehicle set up in 2015 by Allianz and ATP Infrastructure Spain to acquire four assets from Spanish developer Comsa. As its first investment in Spain, Allianz Capital Partners (ACP) manages Allianz’s stake. Torontobased Bastion Infrastructure Group manages ATP’s stake, which is owned by Danish pension fund Arbejdsmarkedets Tillægspension. The investors have decided to set up a Madrid office, with Borrego to oversee these four assets. Queenspoint’s assets are minority stakes in three operational PPPs and one maintenance company. The PPPs are Metro Ligero Oeste (MLO), which operates two light rail lines in Madrid (20%); Linia 9 Tram 2 (36.5%) and Linia 9 Tram 4 (36.5%), which operate 28 stations in two segments of the L9 metro line in Barcelona. The fourth asset is a 36.5% stake in Linia 9 Manteniment, the maintenance company for the two PPPs in Barcelona. Alongside Queenspoint, MLO’s shareholders are OHL and Aberdeen. For the L9 PPPs, the other shareholders are understood to be DIF, ACS and John Laing for L9 Tram 4; and ACS and John Laing for L9 Tram 2. Borrego will remain in Madrid. He joins from Globalvia, where he was a senior investment director since 2013. He had previously been based in Dublin, where he acted as UK and Ireland country manager. Prior to that, he held roles at Spanish developers FCC Concesiones and Iridium – previously called Dragados Concesiones – in Madrid, Latin America and the US.

The acquisition includes 100% of Comsa Emte’s interests in three concession assets, two granted in connection with the Metro Line 9 commuter rail line in Barcelona and one in connection with the Metro Ligero Oeste light rail lines in Madrid. All assets are fully operational with strong yield generation and are granted under long-term concessions with effectively availability-based payment schemes, with a remaining weighted average life of 26 years.