Bakwena offers thousands of motorists safer and more efficient roads, while assisting with roadside emergencies and collecting tolls.
The routes we manage consists of 90 kilometres of a section of the N1 running from Tshwane northwards to Bela-Bela (Warmbaths) and a 295 kilometre section of the N4 running from Tshwane westwards through Rustenburg and Zeerust to the Botswana border.
Company Profile
Bakwena signed a Concession Contract with the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) to construct, manage, maintain and upgrade the N1 and N4 roads on the 4th October 2000, and to date have successfully met and exceeded expectations on the routes. This to ensure the N1 and N4 routes are at a world-class level.
Bakwena was initially backed by a strong grouping of local and international construction companies, who have experience in all aspects of running a successful toll road concession, as well as financial institutions. The sponsor-group was led by Dragados, the world’s leading operator of toll road and transport infrastructure concessions and Murray & Roberts, a well established South African construction company. The South African Infrastructure Fund and COFIDES (Spain) were the major non-sponsor shareholders.
The initial construction works were undertaken by a design and construct joint venture (Platinum JV) consisting of Dragados of Spain and the local firms of Murray & Roberts, Concor and Wilson Bailey Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO). Since the initial construction works were completed and traffic patterns were established, the construction shareholders have divested and sold their shareholding to the remaining financial institutional shareholders.
The toll road is being operated and maintained by Pt Operational Services (Pty) Ltd, a special purpose South African operating company within the Tolcon Group of companies.
Funding
Funding for the initiation of the Bakwena project was initially raised from the private sector. The shareholders committed to pay R 700 million and five local and international banking institutions arranged the R 2.3 billion structured lending facilities. The following banking institutions were instrumental in co-ordinating the lending facility for the initial Bakwena project funding requirements.
The project was successfully refinanced in June 2009 by Nedbank Capital, as lead arranger and ABSA Bank Limited as funder. The refinancing culminated in a change of shareholding with the foreign and local contractors divesting their shareholding to the remaining financial institutional shareholders.