“Some of the shareholders are potentially looking to exit and are talking to advisors,” Charlton said. “We’re just registering our interest and we will have to see how the whole process plays out.”
Transurban operates nearly all of Australia’s 21 toll roads – except for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel and EastLink – so it may face opposition from the country’s competition watchdog about its expansion plans as well as the difficulty of overcoming an existing shareholders’ agreement in EastLink that prevents toll road operators from buying in to the road.
Transurban,which owns Melbourne’s CityLink and Sydney’s WestConnex,reported a record December half-year as bumper traffic and CPI-linked toll increases lifted proportional toll revenue to $1.66 billion,while total revenue topped $2 billion. Earnings before interest,tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) topped the billion dollar mark at $1.07 billion and net profit for the half came in at $55 million.
The toll road behemoth owns a number of expressways in North America and is building the Westgate tunnel in Melbourne and the Rozelle interchange and M7-M12 widening and integration in Sydney.
A big lift in freight volumes and record traffic in Sydney and Brisbane as well as more frequent car journeys on the weekends contributed to its strong result.
Average workday traffic in Sydney increased by 40.3 per cent and weekend/public holiday traffic rose 77.9 per cent. Melbourne’s workday traffic was up 38.5 per cent and weekends 71.8 per cent.