Project Financing and Implementation
| Metropistas moved quickly and assembled the financing it needed to assume the operating lease. The company had to raise a total of $1.436 billion, which covered the $1.080 billion lease payment plus additional funding for capital improvements. Metropistas's financing involved a combination of its own equity and loans provided by a group of commercial banks. Metropistas invested a total of $421 million in its own equity at-risk. Forty-five percent of this money was provided by Abertis and the remaining 55 percent was provided by Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners. In February 2013, the two investors adjusted their equity stakes in the concession, with Abertis increasing its equity stake in the concession to 51 percent. | PR 22 and PR 5 Lease
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Metropistas borrowed a total of $725 million from a group of 12 European and Puerto Rican banks, including Banco Santander, Scotiabank, RBC Capital Markets, Société Générale, Siemens Financial, Intensa, ING Bank, Crédit Agricole, La Caixa, Caja Madrid, WestLB, and Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. It executed its loans in September 2011; a milestone known as "reaching financial close." The bank loan has to be repaid in seven years. PRHTA used the upfront lease payment to repay $902 million of its existing debt and reserved the remainder for other improvements projects in the region.
At the time of the concession agreement's execution, PR-22 and PR-5 were in substandard condition. The toll roads required new pavement, signage, lighting, and safety barriers in order to improve traffic service and safety. Metropistas agreed to implement a group of improvements in the first three years of the lease period to address safety and performance conditions. Those improvements cost roughly $50 million, while an additional $300 million in investment is planned over the lease period.
The contract also called for the construction of two reversible, dynamically-priced toll lanes in the medians of PR-22 and PR-5 from Toa Baja to Bayamón (approximately six miles). The new lanes increase the free flow of traffic in and out of Bayamón (Puerto Rico's second largest city) and provide new public transit options for commuters. In addition to bus rapid transit, the lanes allow motorists paying a premium rate to use the lanes to avoid congestion. Toll rates vary in real time to meter the amount of paying traffic and ensure congestion-free conditions. The toll lanes opened to traffic in August 2013.
The concession agreement was extended by 10 years on April 21, 2016 in exchange for an additional payment from the concessionaire to the project sponsors of $115 million. The concessionaire's revenue share was also increased from 50 to 75 percent of future toll revenues.
The PR-22/PR-5 lease was the only bank-financed P3 toll concession to close in North America in 2011. It was also the first brownfield toll project to close since 2006, before the start of the financial crisis in 2008.