Atlas Arteria to fight new French motorway taxes

afr.com:

Toll road group Atlas Arteria’s lucrative French motorway could be hit with a new annual tax of almost $200 million after the French government released its 2024 budget.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government has revealed details of a proposed new tax on transport infrastructure like airports and motorways as it tries to raise money to invest in more environmentally friendly rail networks and reduce carbon emissions.

French toll road Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhone is Atlas Arteria’s most profitable toll road asset, contributing $557 million of earnings in the six months to June. APRR/Leimdorfer Gilles

A draft finance bill has proposed taxing 4.6 per cent of the revenues of big companies with annual revenues of more than €120 million starting in 2024.

The tax has a financial impact on Atlas Arteria because the company owns a 31 per cent stake in France’s 2318-kilometre Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhone (APRR).

APRR is Atlas Arteria’s most profitable toll road asset, contributing $557 million of earnings in the six months to June, about 80 per cent of its group toll road income.

While Atlas Arteria and analysts had been expecting some kind of tax, the French government had not specified details until Wednesday.

Atlas Arteria said on Thursday that if the proposed tax had been in place in 2022, two of the four motorway concessions linked to the APRR would have been on the hook for €117 million ($193 million) in extra taxes.

However, APRR’s concessions also contain protections against new taxes, and the toll road operator will investigate whether concession holders will have to pay the new tax and whether they will receive any compensation if they do.

“The APRR group has retained legal counsel and is considering its options,” Atlas