APM T makes direct pitch to elected officials to win Virginia concession bid

COUNTERING bids from Deutsche Bank and the Carlyle Group to build a Port of Virginia container terminal, APM Terminals has sent a sales pitch directly to the "mayors and chairs" of towns and other elected bodies to win support.

APM T president Eric Sisco's unsolicited proposal involves the transfer of ownership of the APM T facility to the state of Virginia that he says would free up nearly US$4 billion in state revenue.

Said Mr Sisco: "We'll double the size of the current APM Terminals facility and modernise and expand NIT and the other facilities. We'll also delay, for decades to come, the need for Virginia to commit another US$1.5 billion to $2 billion to the planned development of Craney Island."

If APM Terminals' unsolicited bid for the Port of Virginia is accepted, then the company will inject more than $2 billion in capital investments into the terminals, said Mr Sisco's letter.

"APM Terminals has been a partner with the Commonwealth [of Virginia] and the Port of Virginia for the past 35 years. Continuing our long history of investment, in 2007 we made the largest private investment in Virginia and the largest private port investment in the United States when we built our $540 million state-of-the-art container terminal in Portsmouth. We face the same transportation challenges each one of you face," the letter said.