3i Infrastructure plc has completed the sale of its entire stake in Eversholt Rail Group , an UK rail rolling stock company, to CK Investments S.A R.L.
CK Investments is jointly owned by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited and Cheung Kong Limited.
The sale of the investment will generate estimated proceeds of approximately £358 million (US$541.8 million) for 3i Infrastructure. The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately £2.5 billion (US$3.78 billion).
3i Infrastructure acquired its interest in Eversholt Rail in December 2010 as part of a consortium with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and STAR Capital Partners with its co-investor PGGM. All of the investors in Eversholt Rail have elected to sell their entire interest in Eversholt Rail to CKI.
Eversholt Rail owns approximately 28% of the current UK passenger train fleet. Its 19 fleets, predominantly weighted towards electric trains, are leased to 11 Train Operating Companies. Eversholt Rail also owns a fleet of freight locomotives.
Over the past four years, the consortium has worked closely with the management team to establish Eversholt Rail as a successful independent company.
The transaction was announced on 20 January 2015. At that time, Peter Sedgwick Chairman of 3i Infrastructure commented:
"While 3i Infrastructure generally aims to hold its Core investments over the long term, it will sell investments from time to time where this generates significant additional value for shareholders and it is in this context that we have taken the decision to sell our shareholding in Eversholt Rail. We carefully evaluated the price offered against our assessment of the potential for the business, as well as the impact on our investment portfolio of selling this investment."
"We have been busy developing a healthy pipeline of new investment opportunities and look forward to bidding on a number of Core opportunities over the coming months while remaining disciplined and targeted in what we pursue, maintaining our focus on opportunities with clear infrastructure characteristics that will deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns to our shareholders."