Meridiam Infrastructure is pleased to announce that a Meridiam consortium has reached financial close on the North East Anthony Henday (NEAH) drive in Canada. NEAH completes the ring road around the City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada’s sixth largest city with a metropolitan population over one million. The Project consists of 27 km of 6- and 8-lane divided roadway (9 km of new construction and 18 km of highway reconstruction), 9 interchanges, 10 flyovers (8 rail and 2 road), twin bridge structure across the North Saskatchewan River, and a total of 48 bridge structures. In addition, the Project includes operation and maintenance (but not rehabilitation) of associated existing highway infrastructure.

The concession contract will run for 30 years after completion of construction with remuneration through an availability payment scheme, subject to performance deductions and is contracted with the Province of Alberta. Opening to traffic is scheduled for 2016.

For this C$1.5 billion project including public subsidies, Meridiam is partnering with ACS and Hochtief. Under the consortium agreement, the consortium will subcontract i) the construction through a fixed price, date certain engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”) contract to a construction joint venture with Flatiron, Dragados, Aecon, Lafarge and Sureway and ii) the maintenance and operation through a fixed-price operations and maintenance contract (“O&M Contract”) with Volker Stevin .

Construction will proceed after a development phase which includes project design, approval and land acquisition.

The project will be financed through a combination of public subsidies (C$925 million), long term senior bonds (C$535 million) and junior funds.

The project will represent Meridiam’s sevens North American investment, alongside the Port of Miami Tunnel in Florida, the NTE and LBJ managed lane in Texas, the CR CHUM hospital in Canada, the Long Beach Courthouse and Presidio Parkway (under closing) in California.