BNDES approves $549m loan for Sao Paulo highway system
Brazilian development bank BNDES has approved a BRL3 billion ($549 million) loan for construction work on the brownfield Piracicaba-Panorama (PiPa) highway in the state of Sao Paulo.
The project involves upgrading 1,224km of highways that cross 62 municipalities between Piracicaba, northwest of megacity Sao Paulo, and Panorama which lies to the west, on the border with the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. BNDES said its loan corresponds to 58% of the investments that PiPa will make in the first seven years of the concession. The investments will allow the duplication of lanes, construction and expansion of bridges and viaducts, and implementation of third and fourth lanes and marginal roads. They will also include the construction of user service stops and toll plazas.
The loan is being extended to Eixo SP Concessionaria de Rodovias, which signed the concession agreement under a design-build-finance-operate-maintain structure.
Last year Sao Paulo and its transportation agency awarded a 30-year concession to a consortium made up of Brazilian private equity firm Patria and Singapore's investment fund GIC. PiPa is among the largest road projects ever to be awarded to a private-sector company in Latin America.
