CPPIB, Ontario Teachers’ partner with Mexican toll road

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan are among the investors teaming up to invest in a 309-kilometre toll road in Mexico.

Details of the deal include IDEAL retaining a 51 per cent ownership of the highway’s concessionaire, the Guadalajara-Tepic, S.A. de C.V. with the CPPIB and the Ontario Teachers’ taking a 29 and 20 per cent stake, respectively.

Read: CPPIB and Teachers’ invest in Mexican toll road

“Pacifico Sur toll road offers CPPIB a resilient income stream underpinned by a highly diversified traffic base and a strategic location within the country,” said Scott Lawrence, managing director and head of infrastructure at the CPPIB, in a press release. “Broadening our partnership with IDEAL and Ontario Teachers’ through our second investment in Mexican infrastructure will allow us to build on our track record of care and good governance.”

The road, Pacifico Sur, is the second investment by the trio, which includes Mexican construction engineering company Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en América Latina. The first was the acquisition of Arco Norte, another toll road in Mexico, in 2016.

Read: CPPIB invests in Australian toll road

“The Pacifico Sur toll road represents an important addition to our Latin American portfolio of long-term, inflation-linked infrastructure assets,” said Dale Burgess, the Ontario Teachers’ senior managing director of infrastructure and natural resources. “We are excited to be building further on our partnership with IDEAL and CPPIB with this second shared investment in core infrastructure in Mexico.”

Pacifico Sur runs from the country’s central valley to its northwest, linking Guadalajara and Tepic for both commercial and tourist traffic.

Read: CPPIB, OMERS and Teachers’ buy Chicago toll road