NTR stands to receive an upfront payment of €488 million from a deal to "monetise" the value of the West-Link toll bridge contract, which the State will buy from the group over 12 years.
The deal with an unnamed financial institution follows final agreement late last week of a buyout contract with the National Roads Authority (NRA), the public body that will take control of the West-Link from August 2008.
The scene of some of the worst traffic congestion in Ireland, the bridge is used by about 100,000 motorists every day.
The NRA will make index-linked payments of €50 million per annum to NTR from August 2008 until March 2020, when a concession dating from the late 1980s runs out.
At today's prices, the buyout is worth a little less than €600 million to NTR.
The monetisation agreement sees NTR take a 20 per cent discount on the overall figure to receive money upfront from a financial institution.
NTR will make interest payments totalling some €112 million to the institution in question for the duration of the buyout arrangement.
While NTR's intentions for the money are not known, the group's subsidiaries are involved in a number of capital-intensive projects in the wind energy, biofuels and waste sectors.
It is understood that NTR will have ongoing corporate tax obligations in respect of the annual payments it will receive from the NRA. The former National Toll Roads had requested an indemnity against a higher tax bill when the buyout took effect, but the Government ruled that out.
The valuation on the buyout is at the upper end of the price range mooted at the outset of the negotiation to buy out NTR from the 1987 concession.
That arrangement was the subject of much criticism because NTR took the benefit from a huge increase in traffic using the State-funded M50 motorway, which adjoins both sides of the West-Link bridge.
The Government hopes that severe congestion on the bridge will be relieved by the introduction of barrier-free tolling on the bridge next year, combined a third lane in each direction of the M50 and a "free-flow interchange" system at junctions into the motorway.
The buyout will allow the removal of the toll plaza on the West-Link and its replacement by a barrier-free tolling arrangement along the same stretch of motorway in 2008. A French consortium has been selected to run the barrier-free tolling system.
Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has characterised the buyout as an opportunity for "the State and the travelling public, rather than NTR" to be the direct beneficiaries of tolls on the bridge.
The Minister has dismissed suggestions that tolls would be levied at various points on the M50. He has said that tolls will be levied for as long as alternative means of public transport were not available.
