ANI Announces Influx of Foreign Investors for Antioquia’s ‘Pacifico 2’ Highway
Colombia’s national infrastructure agency (Agencia Nacional de Infraestructura, ANI) announced September 26 that two big investment banks based in Britain and Canada inked deals to help finance the “Pacifico 2” fourth generation (4G) highway project in Antioquia.
According to ANI, Britain-based ING Capital LLC and Canada-based CDPW Revenue Fixe (the Quebec provincial Pension Fund) are joining the list of investors in Pacifico 2.
Reacting to the announcement, Colombia’s Transport Minister Germán Cardona said that the foreign-investor decisions “show the enormous confidence that national and international banks have in financing these proejcts, and that the [project] concessionaires are doing things correctly.”
ANI president Dimitri Zaninovich added that the latest agreement “is going to permit, for the first time, the entry of institutional investors to finance big infrastructure projects. In this case we have the Quebec Pension Fund and ING from the United Kingdom that are investing more than COP$100 billion [US$34 million] in Pacífico 2.”
Other financiers involved in Pacifico 2 include Banco de Crédito del Perú (US$50 million), Itaú Unibanco S.A. New York Branch (US$50 million) and Banco Santander S.A. (US$35 million), according to ANI
“In addition to these US$250 million investments, there is financing in Colombian pesos with the Banco de Bogotá and Banco Davivienda for COP$510 billion [US$173 million],” according to ANI.
The total project requires more than COP$1.3 trillion (US$442 million) investment, the agency added.
“Pacífico 2” includes 96.5 kilometers of roadway connecting Bolombolo southward alongside the Cauca River to La Pintada and also northward to the southern Medellin suburb of Primavera.
Of those 96.5 kilometers, 37 will be four-lane, divided highway; three kilometers will be two-lane divided highway, 2.5 kilometers of tunnels, 48 bridges and 54 kilometers of rehabilitated roadway.
“This project will improve transport for passengers and cargo from Medellin and Antioquia toward the Coffee Region and the southwest of the country,” according to ANI.
Project concessionaire La Pintada S.A.S. includes Grupo Odinsa (78.85%) and Construcciones El Cóndor (21.15%).
