In a financial win for Queensland Investment Corporation, the state's 70km tollroad system has been sold for more than twice the pricetag it settled for in 2011.
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The fronting running consortium comprising Transurban, subsidary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Tawreed Investments Limited, and Australian Super pulled off the Queensland Motorways sale with a $7.057 billion bid.
The sale well exceeded expectations of market watchers who expected the sale to fetch between $6 billion and $6.5 billion.
That more than doubled what the QIC paid when the Labor government transferred the asset in May 2011 to QIC's investment arm. It then carried a $2.9 billion debt.
When QIC took over management, QML included just the Gateway and Logan motorways. It now manages a 70 km toll network, which includes the Gateway, Gateway Extension and Logan Motorways, the Go-Between Bridge, CLEM7 tunnel and the Legacy Way, which is due to open next year.
It confirmed it was looking to sell the business in November last year.
QIC Chief Executive Officer Damien Frawley, who last month said the demand for these sorts of assets outstripped supply world wide, said the sale price demonstrated “the high quality of the Queensland Motorways assets and its people”.
“QIC’s Global Infrastrucutre group made substantial progress in commercialising the business since taking over three years ago, installing a highly experienced board and management team,” he said in a statement.
“..There was a high level of interest in the sale prcess, with a number of competing consortia comprising committed and competitive local and international institutional investors and strategic industry players.
“The successful consortium has a long-established track record in successfully owning and operating similar assets.”
Queensland Motorways was held on behalf of the state’s Defined Benefit Fund, the superannuation fund of current public servants.
The sale will have no impact on toll costs, which are regulated under franchise agreements QML holds with the state government and Brisbane City Council.
At the time the Bligh government transferred ownership of the asset to the QIC, then Lord Mayor Campbell Newman spoke of establishing a consortium to manage the southeast toll network.
"We think it's in the interests of the motorists of south-east Queensland, the people of south-east Queensland, that we create a new motorway tollway company that has the financial grunt not only to get better efficiencies in the way that these motorways are run, but also look at how we can improve our road network," he told the ABC in 2010.
The sale is still subject to “certain conditions'' being satisfied, but is expected to be completed by September.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission cleared the way for the Tawreed-led consortium to bid for QML earlier this month, when it announced it would not oppose the acquisition if Tawreed succeeded.
The ACCC found that a sale to Tawreed, which also owns Melbourne's CityLink and Sydney's M2, Lane Cove Tunnel and had recently acuired the Cross City Tunnel did not hold similiar assets in Queensland.
