The retail offer for the Sydney Roads Group (SRG) capital raising has been launched today.
The new infrastructure trust has been spun out of Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) and will take over three Sydney roads (The Eastern Distributor, M5 and M4) previously run by MIG.
Investors in MIG will receive one SRG share for every three MIG shares they own.
The capital raising will be for $125 million, of which $25 million will be raised through retail investors at $1.15 a share.
MIG chief executive officer Stephen Allen said the de-merger of part of the group created two trusts with different characteristics.
“The de-merger is structurally efficient for MIG security holders,” he said.
“After the de-merger, MIG will retain a globally diversified portfolio of 10 assets, which have less established operating histories than the three Sydney roads.”
SRG chief executive officer Ed Sandrejko said the three roads form an integral part of Sydney’s road network.
“There are more than 91 million tolled trips a year on the three roads, and [they] are well positioned to benefit from further economic growth,” he said.
SRG is forecasting a distribution of 7.87 cents per security for the year ending June, 2007, franked at 53 per cent.
Gearing in the new trust is at a conservative 46 per cent to allow for future replacement and maintenance of the roads.
And because the Sydney assets are seen as mature from a development point of view, there will not be any further capital raisings, as the new trust does not plan to buy any more roads.
The retail offer in SRG will close on July 14.
