Estoniafinland 15bn Financing Tender

Finest Bay Area Development has inked a Memorandum of Understanding MOU with Touchstone Capital Partners China for 15bn in financing to construct a 100km railway tunnel under the Gulf of Finland between Helsinki Finland and Tallinn Estonia.Two-thirds of the funding will come as debt financing and one-third as private equity investment. The Touchstone Capital Partners Fund will own a minority stake in the project with commitment to project debt financing.With progress in the project financing will be made available to FinEst Bay Area Development with negotiations on financial details to be carried out over a period of the next six months. The latest funding is said to be in addition to the 100m funding agreed in late 2018 with Dubai-based ARJ Holding.Mr Kustaa Valtonen of FinEst Bay Area Development said We are very pleased with the negotiations and the agreement reached. Touchstone has extensive experience in financing similar large private infrastructure projects. Our goal is to also secure European Nordic and Finnish capital investments in addition to the already agreed financing arrangement. We are looking for a sustainable and fully balanced financing solution for the project.The subsea standard-gauge railway tunnel between the capitals of Finland and Estonia is expected to reduce travel time between countries and will create a unified metropolitan area in the capital regions of Finland and Estonia. The project expected to reduce travel time from 2 hours by ferry to 20 minutes by train would likely come at a cost ranging between 15-20bn. The tunnel will be designed to connect Finland to the standard-gauge Rail Baltica project connecting the three Baltic States with Poland and the western Europe standard-gauge network.FinEst Bay Area Development Company founder Mr Peter Vesterbacka said The Tallinn Tunnel is one of Europes largest infrastructure projects and it will require close collaboration between the project consortium and the public sectors of Finland and Estonia. We are very fortunate to have very effective and transparent public actors in both nations and we look forward to open and active partnership with all parties.Mr Kenny Song chairman of Touchstone Capital Partners said The railway tunnel between Finland and Estonia is a new and ambitious project that is great to be involved in. The tunnel creates a common metropolitan area from the Helsinki and Tallinn regions which have a great opportunity to become a centre of gravity connecting Asia and Europe.