Rijkswaterstaat and OpenIJ consortium reach financial close on the new sea lock at IJmuiden

The new IJmond sea entrance is part of Rijkswaterstaat’s Locks Programme. Rijkswaterstaat, the Province of North Holland, the City of Amsterdam, Port of Amsterdam and the Municipality of Velsen worked together in the realization of this new large sea lock at IJmuiden which is co-funded by the TEN-T programme of the European Union.

After almost 100 years in operation the Northern lock in IJmuiden will be replaced with a new, larger lock system to improve the accessibility of the port of Amsterdam. This will stimulate the local economy by offering space to the growing number of ships, independent of the tidal levels. The new lock will be 70 meters wide, 500 meters long and 18 meters deep.

Construction activities will be carried out by a BAM Infra and VolkerWessels joint venture. The work will commence early 2016 with the new lock available for shipping at the end of 2019. The dredging activities will be carried out by subcontractors Van Oord and Boskalis. The new lock will then be maintained by OpenIJ for 26 years.

The financing structure included bank loan facilities, an EIB (European Investment Bank) facility and equity financing. The financing parties involved were DZ Bank, KfW IPEX-Bank, SMBC, BTMU, Unicredit Bank and the EIB. The equity investors were BAM PPP PGGM Infrastructure Coöperatie U.A., VolkerWessels and DIF Infrastructure III, with Rabobank providing an equity bridge facility.

Consultants to the consortium included RBC and Houthoff Buruma. Consultants to the banks included JLT and Mazars. Herbert Smit Freehills with Linklaters provided legal advice to the banks. Mott MacDonald provided technical advice to the banks. Rijkswaterstaat was advised by PwC and Pels Rijcken & Drooglever Fortuijn.

BAM PPP

BAM PPP is responsible for Royal BAM Group’s involvement in the PPP market. Operating from offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Ireland and Germany, BAM PPP is active in the road, rail, education, healthcare, judicial and general accommodation sectors. BAM PPP has reached financial close on 38 projects, with a total capital value of over €5.7 billion. www.bamppp.com

PGGM

PGGM is a cooperative Dutch pension fund service provider. Institutional clients are offered: asset management, pension fund management, policy advice and management support. On June 30, 2015 PGGM had €186,6 billion in assets under management. The PGGM cooperative has approximately 700,000 members and is helping them to realize a valuable future. Either alone or together with strategic partners, PGGM develops innovative future solutions by linking together pension, care, housing and work. www.pggm.nl

VolkerWessels

VolkerWessels is a Dutch construction group with 120 operating companies. We have branches in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada/United States in three divisions: Construction & Real Estate, Infrastructure and Energy & Telecoms. VolkerWessels and its 15,000 employees have the right solution when it comes to living, work, mobility and energy & telecom. We develop, design, build, finance, manage, operate and maintain. We develop, design, build, finance, manage and operate. We do this for our stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and society in general. VolkerWessels is a company that exploits opportunities and introduces sustainable innovations. www.volkerwessels.com

DIF

DIF is an independent Dutch investor in infrastructure projects which manages €3.1 billion of funds. Through targeted investment funds DIF offers its investors access to highly qualified infrastructure projects that generate long term stable cash flows, such as public private partnership (PPP) and renewable energy projects. DIF is active in Europe, North America and Australia, and has offices in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Madrid, Toronto, Sydney and Luxembourg. www.dif.eu

Further information

• Arno Pronk, Koninklijke BAM Groep, +31 (0)30 659 86 23, ac.pronk@bamgroep.nl;
• Maurice Wilbrink, PGGM, +31 (0)30 277 97 35, maurice.wilbrink@pggm.nl;
• Gjalt Rameijer, VolkerWessels, +31 (0)88 186 61 76, grameijer@volkerwessels.com;
• Allard Ruijs, DIF, +31 (0)20 655 4705, a.ruijs@dif.eu