Macquarie Atlas Roads (MQA) announced on Wednesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire an additional 1.4% interest in Macquarie Autoroutes de France 2 SA (MAF2), the company through which MQA and certain Macquarie-managed entities hold their indirect investment in Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône (APRR).

The acquisition, valued at €41.5 million, will increase MQA's economic interest in APRR by 0.7%, from 19.44% to 20.14%. The acquisition implies an Enterprise Value (EV) of €14.9 billion for the APRR group.

The vendor is a Macquarie-managed vehicle which is concurrently selling an equal stake to third parties on the same terms.

The acquisition is expected to provide an attractive return to MQA and will also support MQA's existing dividend per share outlook. The acquisition is also expected to consolidate MQA's position in the APRR ownership structure.

The acquisition will be funded by a placement of new MQA stapled securities to eligible institutional and sophisticated investors to raise approximately $60 million. The bookbuild for the placement was conducted on Wednesday.

MQA stapled securities will remain in trading halt until the earlier of such time as it makes an announcement to the market in relation to the outcome of the placement and the commencement of trading on 17 July 2014.

New Stapled Securities issued under the placement will rank equally with existing MQA stapled securities and are expected to settle on 22 July 2014 and be allotted on 23 July 2014. New Stapled Securities will be allotted before the record date for the 2H 2014 distribution, which means that they will be eligible to receive the 2H 2014 distribution.