Italy’s Salini Impregilo Group has sold the plants and paving division of its US-based Lane Construction business to Eurovia for around US$555 million (€477 million).
Salini said that the deal with Eurovia, part of the French concessions and construction group Vinci, is subject to clearance by regulatory authorities. Closing and payment are expected by the end of the year.
Salini Impregilo said the sale is part of its plan “to consolidate its growth strategy in large, complex infrastructure projects in the US by exiting from non-core and non-strategic activities”.
Lane Construction continues to be part of Salini and remains focused on transport, tunnelling and water projects, with annual revenue expected at $1.4 billion. “The US is Salini Impregilo’s biggest market by revenue and its goal is to increase the amount generated in North America within the next three years to 40% of the group’s total,” the company said in a written statement.
“From a financial perspective, we have closed a transaction that involves a non-core asset for Lane – and a non-strategic one for the group – for $555 million, $100 million more than the amount that the Salini Impregilo Group paid to acquire all of Lane three years ago,” said Pietro Salini, the group’s chief executive.
The sale announcement comes as Lane Construction won a design-build joint-venture contract with Security Paving Company to build the I-10 Corridor Contract 1 Express Lanes in California. Lane picks up around $404 million of work in the project whose overall value is around $673 million. The I-10 is a major trucking route between southern California and the rest of the country.
The Contract 1 portion of the project involves designing and constructing around 18km of two express lanes in each direction of the I-10 from the Los Angeles/San Bernardino County line to east of the I-10/I-15 interchange. Work is expected to begin by the end of 2018 and be completed in the first half of 2023.
