Winners Announced For the Ruta Del Sol Concessions

INCA, the Colombian national concessions authority, today announced the results of competitive bidding to construct, operate, and maintain two of the three sectors of the Ruta Del Sol, a limited-access highway that will connect Bogotá, the Magdalena River valley, and the Caribbean coastal cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena.  The massive project, said to be the second largest in Latin America after the Panama Canal, is a leading example (and not the only one) of the scale of the infrastructure activity and project finance deals in Colombia and related foreign investment.

As reported here earlier, all bidders — and now, all concessionaires — are international consortia.   

Sector One was one by the Argentine/Colombian consortium Consorcio Vial Helios (the Sun Highway Consortium). The winning bid is COP 962,075,973,782, or roughly US$481 million.  The consortium consists of Carlos Alberto Solarte (Colombia); Conconcreto SA (Colombia); IECSA SA (Argentina), CSS Builders SA (Colombia).

Sector Two was won by the Spanish/Colombian consortium Estructura Plural Promesa de Sociedad Futura Concesionaria Ruta del Sol S.A.S. (the Future Promise Society Plural Structure Concessionary of the Ruta del Sol SAS), led by the Brazilian firm Odebretch and the Colombian firm Grupo Sarmiento Angulo.  The winning bid was roughly COP 2.1 trillion or US$ 1 billion. 

The third sector had only one bidder, the Chinese/Colombian consortium Union Temporal Concesión RDS (the RDS Temporary Concession Union), consisting of: MNV S.A. (Colombia); Gas Kapital GR SA; China Railway Shisiju Group Corporation (China); Great Ways Investment and Engineering Ltd (Colombia) Inversiones Grandes Vías e Ingeniería Ltda (Colombia).