The US fund Oaktree Capital Management is set to invest 450 million US Dollars in Watco, a rail freight company with activity in the US, Mexico and Australia.

Oaktree holds stakes totalling 2.58 billion US dollars in infrastructure projects. It invests in port operator Ports America (active in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oregon, California, Washington, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Maine, North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania), NorthStar Terminals (Texas), NorthStar Transloading (logistical area project in North Dakota) and NGL Energy Partners (logistics operator specialist in oil and gas).

Watco

Watco’s headquarters are located in the US state of Kansas. It owns 41 short line rail tracks and provides several rail freight services. It started handling oil trains in the US in 2009. It achieved a contract to operate a rail freight service specialised in grains in Australia and it acquired Greens Port Industrial Park and the Houston shipping channel (Texas). Here, it offered storage and barge and vessel loading and unloading services for oil operators in 2010.

Watco operates in the Mexican rail freight industry, throughout a partnership with the US rail freight operator Kansas City Southern (KSC) at the San Luis Potosi Terminal. San Luis Potosi is a mining area and a rail hinterland between the Caribbean and Pacific coast, and between Monterrey and Mexico DF, the main industrial axis in the country.