Ten financial institutions refinance Pamplona–Cúcuta Project in 4G concessions program

Cuatrecasas has advised Banco Santander, JPMorgan Chase Bank and a group of financial institutions on refinancing the Pamplona–Cúcuta Project, which is part of the Fourth Generation Roads Concession Program (4G) in Colombia and operated by Sacyr.

The project will improve the country’s road connectivity—especially at the border crossing with Venezuela—and boost socio-economic development in the northwest of Colombia by decreasing travel times and transport costs. This will have a direct impact on over 782,000 people in the region.

This transaction has led to Unión Vial Río Pamplonita obtaining a long-term financing of $642 million to develop the project involving building, operating, maintaining and managing (social, environmental and land management) the Pamplona–Cúcuta highway, in Colombia’s North Santander department. The closure was particularly complex due to its contractual structure, the many stretches of highway and the number of financiers—10 in total—involved.

The refinancing obtained the social bond rating awarded by Moody’s ESG Solutions and is structured around a $400 million bond issuance, a $165 million multi-tranche loan and another loan denominated in Colombian pesos equivalent to $77 million. The issuance is Sacyr's third social bond in Colombia and the largest to date in Latin America for an infrastructure project.

The Cuatrecasas team was led by Manuel Quinche, managing partner of our office in Bogotá. Our lawyers Natalia Arango, Felipe Londoño, Laura Salazar and Natalia Serrano (Project Finance); and Ana María Sánchez and Sara Gómez (Infrastructure) also participated.

Together with Cuatrecasas, the following law firms participated in the transaction: Castro Leiva Rendón, as legal advisors under Colombian law to the concessionaire and sponsor; King & Spalding, as counsel under New York law to the concessionaire and sponsor; Clifford Chance, as counsel to the lenders under New York law; and Garrigues Colombia, as counsel under Colombian law to BlackRock.