Heijmans in Barclays tie up

Dutch-based builder Heijmans and Barclays Infrastructure Fund (BIF) are to be partners in the Heijmans Capital joint venture for financing DBFMO (design, build, finance, maintain, operate) projects.

Heijmans said the partnership was aimed at sharing the risk-bearing capital and knowledge required to carry out DBFMO projects, starting as early as the tender phase.

An initial agreement between the two has now become a final agreement, in which the Dutch National Military Museum project in Soesterberg will be the first project to benefit directly from this partnership.

Heijmans said that with BIF it was seeing an expansion of the market for public-private partnership (PPP) and DBFMO projects, particularly in relation to customers like the Dutch Government Building Agency (Rijksgebouwendienst) and the Directorate-General for Public Works & Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat).

The partnership, said Heijmans, ensured that it was able to anticipate this market trend and that the companies could reinforce each other on the basis of their individual strengths – Barclays as fund manager, and Heijmans as builder and operator.

The joint venture concerns the long-term financing of risk-bearing DBFMO projects. Heijmans said that as such, it was separate from Heijmans' core activities of building, developing and operating.

Heijmans Capital is focused on projects in the Netherlands and Belgium. For new projects, BIF will assume a participating interest of 80% in Heijmans Capital, with Heijmans taking the other 20%. Both parties will be represented on the management board.