Ferrovial buys Texas-based Webber Group for $220 million

Ferrovial, Spain's second-largest construction group, bought the Texas-based Webber Group for $220 million (€178 million) on Tuesday, the Spanish company said in a statement to national securities regulators.

The purchase of Webber, whose construction and services operations are located in Houston and Dallas, will provide Ferrovial with an established base to provide support for its $37 billion contract with the Texas Department of Transportation to build and operate the Trans-Texas Corridor, running from the Mexican border to Texas' northern border with Oklahoma.

The deal, which is pending approval by US securities regulators, involves Ferrovial taking control of 100 percent of the Webber Group, which includes the W. W. Webber Inc. construction and services unit, Southern Crushed Concrete and the Webber Management Group. In total, Webber controls assets worth about $500 million, and estimates that its sales for this year will be about $400 million.

Ferrovial said that buying Webber will give it the necessary footing in Texas to support its 50-year contract to build and manage the Trans-Texas Corridor, awarded to Ferrovial unit Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte (Cintra) in December 2004. The project includes 1,300 kilometers of roads, railways, and power, water and telecommunications facilities.

From the Huntsville Item:

Citizens voice concerns over new highway proposal (08/10/2005)

By Matt Pederson/Staff Writer

While Huntsville's chamber of commerce may be excited to see the Trans-Texas Corridor come through Walker County, citizens here don't seem to be convinced another major highway will be such a good thing.

Many landowners who live outside the city attended an informational meeting with the Texas Department of Transportation on Wednesday night at the Walker County Fairgrounds to voice concerns over land that has been in their families for generations.

While the final location of the proposed Interstate 69 is undetermined, it may cross Interstate 45 as close as five miles north of Huntsville, coming way too close for some local landowners' comfort.

"I own land in Walker County and my mother owns land in Walker County and we live close to the route that they have," Bruce Williams said.

Tommie Middleton is a Walker County landowner as well, and even if his land does not come into question, he is concerned about the traffic and the noise it will bring with it.

"I own a small piece of land in the north part of Walker County and I didn't want to be in this," Middleton said. "I can already hear (Interstate) 45 from my house and I don't want to hear 69."

As it is currently proposed, each route of I-69 will include separate lanes for passenger vehicles, large trucks, freight railways and high-speed commuter railways.

While passenger traffic may be opened up with I-69, Middleton believes there are ulterior motives for constructing the highway.

"All of this is just so Mexico can do trade up north," Middleton said. "This doesn't have a thing to do with traffic or the quality of life in Huntsville and Walker County, Texas. This is for Mexico."

Jack Heiss, the project manager for the I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor, acknowledged that it will give Mexico another way to trade with the United States, but said it will also give the U.S. another way to export goods to its southern neighbor.

"We're looking at half the vehicles in this corridor that are commercial vehicles," Heiss said. "From our initial estimates, we're looking at a lot of imports coming up from the south and exports, too, going the other way, because of its alignment to the midwest and the industrial northeast."

While the roads will no doubt be used heavily for trade, Williams is concerned about what, specifically, may be traded using the highway.

"I think it's a bad deal, because they're going to come in and take these landowners' property and they're fixing to open up a major drug highway from Mexico to Canada," Williams said.

While TxDOT is busy making informational meetings all over Texas, the reality of I-69 is still far off in the distance. The project itself will take close to 50 years to reach completion, but before ground is even broken, they need approval from the Federal Highway Administration.

Right now, they are in the middle of close to a three-year process of putting together an environmental study. Now that they have outlined the area they would like to look at, they are getting input from people in the potentially affected areas.

"The meetings are for two basic purposes," Heiss said. "The first one is to provide the public with information on the project and its current stage of development and secondly, and probably most importantly, to let the public give us feedback on their opinions and their local knowledge and anything else that might help us in making the project better."

Final approval for the TTC and I-69, if granted, is expected in winter 2006.

Matt Pederson can be reached at (936) 295-5407 ext. 3023 or by e-mail at mpederson@itemonline.com

One of the proposed routes, in blue, takes the transportation corridor through the western and northern areas of Walker County. The Texas Department of Transportation has denoted the areas in orange as "avoidance areas" for the corridor. Map courtesy of Texas Department of Transportation

From Corridor Watch:

CorridorWatch.org LATE NEWS FLASH (080905)

GOVERNOR PERRY ADDS EMINENT DOMAIN TO CALL

With less than two weeks remaining in the special session Governor Perry has finally added eminent domain to the call. In a press release issued today the Governor says, "This is a very important issue to Texans who want assurances their private property won't be taken from them to advance someone else's private interests. I hope legislators can come to a consensus on protecting Texans from unfair land grabs."

We certainly agree with the Governor and are pleased that this important property rights issue can be addressed.

The Proclamation specifically permits consideration of "legislation relating to limiting the use of eminent domain to take private property for private parties or economic development purposes."

Now it's in the hands of our Representatives and Senators. Hopefully they follow the lead of Representative Frank Corte and pass a meaningful bill to protect our private property rights. Unfortunately, during the last session's consideration of eminent domain our Texas Senators worked to punch holes in Rep. Corte's constitutional protection. Our Senators spent all the available time protecting special interests by ensuring that if a constitutional amendment made it to the ballot it would be virtually meaningless. In the end nothing got passed. Will this time be different?

It's time to communicate with your Representative and Senator.

We need real protection, we need a constitutional amendment.

Don't let your elected officials confuse the issue. Nothing in Rep. Corte’s resolution would stop government efforts to address blighted areas or legitimate efforts to spur economic development. All of those projects would continue to be legal. The only difference is that the government would need to find a willing seller to obtain private land for economic development purposes. Such change in the State Constitution would only take away the government's ability to forcefully take property though eminent domain. It would not end the use of eminent domain power to obtain land for highway construction and it would not stop airport or seaport expansions.

It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that legislative loopholes and trapdoors are KEPT OUT of the constitutional amendment language. If we allow the legislature to declare what is and isn't economic development we will surrender the precise protection that a constitutional amendment is intended to provide. Don't deny yourself and fellow Texans the opportunity to seek relief through our legal system.

Finally, we continue to hear from many of our members and supporters that even Rep. Corte's constitutional amendment becomes effective won't stop the Trans Texas Corridor. That may very well be true. However, it could significantly impact the use of eminent domain for ancillary facilities still allowed by the Transportation Code. And it is the right thing to do. At our core we challenge the Trans Texas Corridor because we believe that it is the wrong thing for Texas. It's the wrong thing to do. Likewise, protecting private property right is right for Texas. It’s the right thing to do. So let's get it done!

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CorridorWatch.org

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CorridorWatch.org – NEWS FLASH – August 9, 2005

THE SPANISH ARE COMING, THE SPANISH ARE COMING

Thanks to the Trans Texas Corridor, Texans can look forward to seeing the Spanish Flag flying high over Texas once again.

There's big money in toll roads and our new state highway corridor monopoly. And TxDOT's Spanish partner appears to want it all.

Remember state officials attempting to rebuff concerns about the world's largest engineering-construction job going to a foreign company? Have you heard them exaggerate role of Zachry Construction making the twenty-percent equity partner somehow sound equal to Cintra and it's eighty-percent stake? Remember how they told you that it would generate thousands of construction jobs right here in Texas? Do you remember being told that it would be a windfall for Texas highway construction companies?

The Associated Press in Madrid, Spain, reports today that Spain's largest construction company, Grupo Ferrovial SA, parent company of Cintra, has negotiated a deal to buy the Houston-based Webber Group.

The $220 million dollar deal will have Ferrovial fully acquire the Webber Group construction company includes W.W.Webber Inc., Southern Crushed Concrete and Webber Management Group. A statement issued by Ferrovial anticipates the sale to be finalized next month.

With the purchase of Webber, Ferrovial (Cintra) has bought themselves a Texas highway construction company on TxDOT's Prequalified Contractor list and one that has plenty of Texas toll road construction experience.

How many ways will our Spanish "partner" profit from the Trans Texas Corridor? And where, or from whom, will all that profit come from? And, perhaps more important, where will all that profit go?

You can bet that this is just the tip of the toll road empire iceberg.

It's time to buy a Spanish flag and prepare to wave it proudly as our state surrenders Texas highways, railroads, utilities and hundreds of thousands of acres of Texas to Spanish profiteers who will effectively own and operate our own Texas infrastructure for the next half-century.

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Thank you for your time and interest,
CorridorWatch.org

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CorridorWatch.org MEMBER NEWS (08.06.05)

LET’S TELL THE TRUTH – THE WHOLE TRUTH

It has come to the attention of CorridorWatch.org that some elected state officials are providing the citizens of Texas with a less than accurate spin on the Trans-Texas Corridor, Proposition 15 (2001), HB-3588 (2003), and HB-2702 (2005).

CorridorWatch.org requests that its members review the following information and compare the official record with the responses that are now being received from their elected officials.

SJR-16 / PROPOSITION 15

It has been repeatedly said that the voters of Texas authorized the Trans-Texas Corridor by overwhelmingly approving Proposition 15 in 2001. Did we?

Here is the complete text of Proposition 15 that appeared on the November 6, 2001 ballot: "The constitutional amendment creating the Texas Mobility Fund and authorizing grants and loans of money and issuance of obligations for financing the construction, reconstruction, acquisition, operation, and expansion of state highways, turnpikes, toll roads, toll bridges, and other mobility projects."

So where does this constitutional amendment propose the Trans-Texas Corridor or any new, massive, corridor project?

It doesn't. As a matter of fact the Governor didn't publicly announce his Trans-Texas Corridor concept until 2002 and TxDOT didn't publish the Trans-Texas Corridor Plan until June of 2002. Any public information about the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project came months after the November 2001 vote on Proposition 15.

HB-3588 / TRANS-TEXAS CORRIDOR

Incredibly, it has been said that the legislature did not vote on the Trans-Texas Corridor.

That statement is absolutely false.

The first item appearing in the text of HB-3588 (2003) is titled, "Trans-Texas Corridor." It is the legislation that created Chapter 227 in the Texas Transportation Code and officially established the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). The bill was authored by Representatives Krusee, Delisi, Capelo, Turner and Phillips. It was sponsored by Senator Ogden. Certainly the legislature did vote on HB-3588 and thereby did vote to create the Trans-Texas Corridor as both houses passed the bill.

Not only did the legislature pass the bill creating the TTC they gave the Transportation Commission and TxDOT a blank check. HB-3588 loosely defined the TTC as a statewide system of facilities and granted the Transportation Commission absolute authority to designate any facility as a part of the TTC. It also authorized TxDOT to construct or operate any facility as part of the TTC.

The legislature authorized the TTC by passing HB-3588 a full year after the Transportation Commission had officially adopted the Trans-Texas Corridor in June 2002. Today the 2002 TTC plan is refered to as the implementation plan for TTC-35.

RUMORS AND MISINFORMATION

It has been said that CorridorWatch.org is spreading rumors and misinformation.

There is nothing presented on our web site as fact that we aren’t prepared to defend with supporting documentation. CorridorWatch.org defends its right to freely express the opinions of its leaders and membership.

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CorridorWatch.org

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