Macquarie Bank acquires NY Icon Parking

Icon Parking operates 192 parking lots, mostly in Manhattan. Australian pension funds -- MTAA Superannuation Fund, Australian Retirement Fund, Westscheme and Statewide Superannuation Trust -- joined Sydney-based Macquarie Bank in the purchase.

"Icon Parking is a leading operator in the Manhattan off- street parking sector, holding a top-two market position by revenue and by number of locations,'' Macquarie Bank Chief Financial Officer Greg Ward said in a statement in Sydney today.

Macquarie, the world's biggest private manager of infrastructure assets, will add the parking lots to the A$112 billion ($82 billion) of assets it manages, 13 percent of which are real-estate investments. It gets income from arranging capital raisings, advising on purchases for the investment funds it manages and collecting bonus fees if the funds beat indexes.

The bank will pay $124.5 million cash for 52.5 percent of Icon. The group of buyers will also assume the debts of Icon, which may be sold in an IPO as a Macquarie-managed fund in 2006, the Australian bank said.

Earnings

Macquarie Global Infrastructure Total Return Fund's $425 million IPO listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August. Macquarie Infrastructure Group, the world's largest toll-road developer, paid $618 million for Virginia's Dulles Greenway turnpike a month later.

Icon Parking Systems is owned by TMO Parent LLC, which is part-owned by Goldman Sachs' Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds.

Earlier this week, Macquarie Bank said first-half profit rose 88 percent to a record A$482 million on management fees. The bank has almost quadrupled profit since 2002.