The Brazilian Government has just commenced the bidding process to award the concessions of Galeão (Rio de Janeiro) and Confins (Minas Gerais) international airports by subjecting the bidding documents (invitation to bid, concession agreement and attachments) to a public consultation.
The drafts of the bidding documents were released on ANAC's website (http://www2.anac.gov.br/transparencia/audienciasPublicasEmAndamento.asp) and are now subject to comments and suggestions until June, 30, 2013.
The final bidding documents are expected to be closed and released right after the public consultation (September, 2013) and the auction is expected to occur in October 2013.
The main terms and conditions of the proposed bidding documents are:
Personal Restrictions. The concessionaire will be the entity signing the concession agreement and having Infraero as a minority shareholder, which must hold 49% of its capital stock.
Airline companies may only participate in the bid in a consortium with a maximum of 4% participation.
The bidders will be allowed to bid on both airports, but each bidder can only be awarded one airport.
Still, each bidder may participate in only one consortium, even if more than one consortium is incorporated to bid on each airports – this restriction is extended to the bidders' controllers, controlled and affiliate companies.
The winning consortiums of previous bids for airport concessions (São Gonçalo do Amarante, Guarulhos, Viracopos and Brasília) are not allowed to participate in this bidding process – this restriction is also applied to the controllers, controlled and affiliate companies of the consortia members.
Term. The concessions are for 25 years at Galeão and 30 years at Confins, extendable once for an additional 5-year period.
Price. The airport concessions will be awarded to the bidder that offers the highest bid proposal, which shall be at least BRL 4.645 billion to Galeão and BRL 1.561 billion to Confins.
Technical Qualification. Technical qualification depends on the satisfactory presentation of a certificate which states that the bidder (or a member of a consortium) has at least 5 years' prior experience operating a single airport which has a level of utilization of more than 35 million passengers during at least one year in the five past years ("Airport Operator").
The technical qualification requirement may be fulfilled by the Airport Operator's controller or wholly-owned subsidiary and also by a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Airport Operator's controller.
The consortium member who meets the technical qualification requirement as Airport Operator must hold a minimum stake of 25% in the consortium.
A maximum of two Airport Operators per consortium will be admitted provided that both of them individually meet the technical qualification requirement – in this case, the Airport Operators will be able to share the 25% minimum stake to be held in the consortium.
Two important novelties of this bidding process are:
The Airport Operation Plan, which will be part of the concession agreement and will establish, among others, the minimum infrastructure requirements of the passenger terminals, services quality indexes and plans to ensure the proper operation of the airport; and
The Infrastructure Management Plan which will be presented by the concessionaire to ANAC every 5 years and must ensure that the concessionaire has an adequate plan to fulfill the concession obligations, especially the service quality requirements and the continuous improvement of airport facilities and systems. ANAC will use such plan to oversee the fulfillment of the concessionaire's obligations during the concession term.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
