The Gleaner – Neville Graham
Chief Investment Officer for Sygnus Group, Jason Morris.
Sygnus Capital acted as lead arranger of a private-public partnership with Caribbean Pavement Solutions, CPS, to fund a road improvement project covering 65 per cent of the road network on the island of Eleuthera in The Bahamas.
The company spearheaded the financing to the tune of US$25 million, for a 163-mile road project being undertaken in collaboration with CPS, a member of the Bahamas Striping Group of Companies.
Eleuthera is a long and thin island that’s 180 kilometres long and, in places, a little more than 1.6 km wide. It has one principal road, the Queens Highway, which runs its entire length, totalling 177 kilometres.
The population is approximately 11,000 and the principal economy of the island is tourism.
A representative of CPS told the Financial Gleaner that the 163 miles of roadwork covers 90 miles of the 110-mile Queens Highway while the other 73 miles will cover settlement roads.
Sygnus has already disbursed just over US$9.2 million of the US$25 million in financing for the project. This will bring total capital fully deployed to US$32 million.
The total involvement of Sygnus in The Bahamas comes to about US48 million, according to Assistant to the company’s Vice President of Investment Management, Ryan Landey.
Sygnus Chief investment Officer Jason Morris said the Eleuthera Road Project follows Sygnus Capital’s US$25 million investment in a 45-mile highway improvement project in Exuma.
“It’s part of the investment strategy to deploy capital into infrastructure. It will also enhance our impact investment strategy to bolster resilience,” Morris said.
The current deal with CPS reflected ongoing business with Striping, he told the Financial Gleaner.
“We’ve structured many transactions for Striping and there are many more to come. This is a partnership, not a one-off transaction,” Morris said.
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20240814/sygnus-capital-leads-us25m-financing-deal-fix-bahamian-roads
