Roadis in talks to buy out partner in Indian joint venture

Roadis, which builds and operates highways globally, is in talks to buy out partner Soma Enterprises in their equally owned joint venture in India, two people aware of the matter said.

The JV, Soma Roadis, has four highway concessions under the build-operatetransfer model in India, stretching 710 km — Panipat-Jalandhar (291 km), Kishangarh-Ajmer-Beawar (94 km), Surat-Hazira Port (133 km) and Varanasi-Aurangabad (192 km). “The discussions are at initial stages and clarity is required over the valuation as a lot of debt is with its Indian counterpart,” said one of the two people. Also, it is yet to be decided whether the assets to be kept independently under the Roadis platform or its newly formed JV with National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, he added. Spokespeople for Roadis and Soma Enterprises did not respond to emails seeking comment till press time. Roadis was previously known as Isolux Infrastructure, a subsidiary of Spanish group Isolux Corsan. Soma Enterprises formed the JV with Isolux Infrastructure in 2009. Canadian pension investment manager PSP Investments acquired Isolux Infrastructure in 2016 and renamed it Roadis. Including the roads under the JV with Soma Enterprises, Roadis manages 1,892 kms of highways in Mexico, Brazil, Spain, India and Portugal.