A pool of credit institutes finalized the contracts relating to the granting of a 185 million euro "endorsed credit" line to the BBM Consortium, EPC contractor for the construction of the Bre-Be-Mi motorway.
The mandated lead arrangers of the transaction are UniCredit (Global Coordinator), BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas (which also acts as Fronting and Agent Bank), BPER, Intesa Sanpaolo, MPS; Banca Popolare di Milano, Banca Popolare di Sondrio and Veneto Banca complete the pool.
The loan is aimed at covering a significant part of the guarantees requested by the Bre-Be-Mi project company for the assignment of the works to the BBM Consortium, made up – with equal shares – of Impresa Pizzarotti & CSpA and the Consorzio Cooperative Costruzioni Group.
The line of credit consists of a performance bond facility for the issue of performance guarantees of up to €129 million, as well as a retention money bond facility for the issue of retention guarantees of €56 million.
The issuance of the aforementioned guarantees represents an important step forward in the realization of the work, as it will allow the disbursement of the financial resources - around 1,9 billion euros - to the concessionaire company provided for in the project financing agreement signed last March .
The direct Brescia-Milan motorway is a 62,1-kilometre long work that will connect starting from the next
year Brescia with Milan along a more direct trajectory, south of the current route of the A4 motorway. The society
concessionaire (direct motorway project company Brescia Milano Spa) obtained last March from a pool of
financial institutions (Cdp, Bei, Sace) and commercial banks (UniCredit, Intesa, Mps, Centrobanca and CreBerg) a project
financing of 1,9 billion euros, of which almost 1,5 for construction costs. The construction works, awarded to the BBM Consortium, are in an advanced stage and must be completed by 31 May 2014 to allow the opening to traffic at the end of the following month.
