AFRICA: Railroad Development Corp has completed the sale of its stake in Nacala Corridor concessionaire Central East African Railway to Mozambican investment group Insitec, the Pittsburgh-based rail management and investment company announced on September 15.
'The sale of our economic interests to local investors represents a major development in the evolution of the Nacala Corridor,' said RDC Chairman Henry Posner III. 'Having restructured and stabilised a patchwork of publicly-owned assets, the foreign investors have at this point created most of the value that we were in a position to achieve. This has ranged from equity investment and the arrangement of third-party debt financing to the streamlining and integration of the management of the infrastructure involved. Full integration of the Nacala Corridor into the local private sector represents the next logical step.'
The sale and past payments 'represent a significant return on our investment' said RDC President and CEAR Chairman Bob Pietrandrea. 'We have demonstrated that value and liquidity have been created in a difficult environment. This transaction will help to bolster RDC's 'war chest' for future opportunities in Africa, and comes at a strategic time as economic opportunities on the continent, which have been perceived as challenging to say the least, are likely to come from both increased interest in concessioning and the inevitable restructuring of some existing concessions.'
