The consortium is made up of Hochtief Concessions subsidiary Hochtief PPP Solutions and the Strabag SE subsidiary Hermann Kirchner Projektgesellschaf. It will plan, finance and upgrade an approximately 58km section of the A8 and operate and maintain it for 30 years. The amount of investment is about €410m.
The A8 is the first project in the second wave of the so-called A-models that the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building & Urban Development has put out to tender. The private partners’ investment will be recovered from a share of the truck toll charged on this section during the operating period, and they will receive government start-up financing. Hochtief Concessions and a partner are already operating a 45km section of the A4 between the Hessian-Thuringian state border and Gotha, while Strabag and further partners are upgrading and operating a 60km section of the A5 in Baden-Württemberg.
Once the financing agreements have been concluded, upgrading work on the A8 is due to start in summer 2011 at the latest and is scheduled for completion within four years.
Heilit+Woerner - another Strabag company - and Hochtief Solutions each have a 50% shareholding in the construction joint venture contracted to do the work. Normal traffic operations will continue while a 41km section of the A8 will be upgraded from four to six lanes. The remaining 17km of the section are already six-lane.
"We are delighted that the German state is prepared to enter into a second public-private partnership for highway construction with us. This also provides confirmation that we performed well on our first A-model in Thuringia," said Hochtief Concessions executive board member Bernward Kulle. In that project, the new Hörselberge bypass was put into operation a year earlier than originally planned.
"Strabag has already established itself as a partner of the public sector with other projects in both public building and road construction, and our PPP portfolio is growing all the time,” said Strabag SE CEO Hans Peter Haselsteiner. “In Germany, as elsewhere, PPP is set to become increasingly important as a procurement option for the public sector in the next few years, since it offers economic advantages and allows upcoming projects to be implemented earlier and faster."
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