Under the deal, Asciano's Pacific National (PN) railfreight business will be sold to Global Infrastructure Management, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, China's CIC Capital Corporation, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCIMC).

Asciano's various ports and logistics operation will be broken into several parts, which will either be owned jointly or separately by previous rivals Qube and Brookfield.

While an exact price has not been put on the purchase of PN, as it is included in the overall sale of Asciano, it is estimated to be in the region of $A 5bn, on annual revenues of around $A 2.4bn

Various regulatory approvals are still to be finalised including from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as well as the Foreign Investment Review Board, but it is anticipated the deal will be finalised by the end of June.