One-third of the funding will come as private equity investment and two-thirds as debt financing. The Touchstone Capital Partners’ Fund will hold a minority stake in the project, and is committed to project debt financing.

Financing will be made available to FinEst Bay Area Development as the project progresses, with financial details to be negotiated over the next six months. The latest funding comes in addition to the €100m funding agreed with Dubai-based ARJ Holding in late 2018.

“We are very pleased with the negotiations and the agreement reached. Touchstone has extensive experience in financing similar large private infrastructure projects,” says Mr Kustaa Valtonen of FinEst Bay Area Development. “Our goal is to also secure European, Nordic and Finnish capital investments in addition to the already agreed financing arrangement. We are looking for a sustainable and fully balanced financing solution for the project.”

The subsea standard-gauge railway tunnel between the capitals of Finland and Estonia will significantly reduce travel time between countries and will create a unified metropolitan area in the capital regions of Finland and Estonia. A prefeasibility study completed in 2018 found demand in passenger transport between the two cities could increase from 9 million in 2017 to 23 million in 2050, including 12.5 million through the tunnel.

The project, which would reduce travel time from 2 hours by ferry to 20 minutes by train, has been estimated to cost between €15-20bn. The tunnel would connect Finland to the standard-gauge Rail Baltica project connecting the three Baltic States with Poland and the western Europe standard-gauge network.

“The Tallinn Tunnel is one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects and it will require close collaboration between the project consortium and the public sectors of Finland and Estonia,” says FinEst Bay Area Development Company founder, Mr Peter Vesterbacka. “We are very fortunate to have very effective and transparent public actors in both nations, and we look forward to open and active partnership with all parties.”

“The railway tunnel between Finland and Estonia is a new and ambitious project that is great to be involved in,” says Mr Kenny Song, chairman of Touchstone Capital Partners. “The tunnel creates a common metropolitan area from the Helsinki and Tallinn regions, which have a great opportunity to become a centre of gravity connecting Asia and Europe.”

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