Restructuring specialist Moelis & Company was hired this month by Transurban’s Pocahontas Parkway 895 project company to negotiate with TIFIA and its bank lenders in the event of a bankruptcy filing on the Australian concessionaire’s 8.8-mile tollroad south of Richmond, Virginia.

No triggering event is likely for 18 months, but the amounts of money at risk are roughly the same as in the South Bay Express bankruptcy last year in San Diego County, California. In that case, SANDAG, a large public agency, has a strategic interest in the road, and paid Macquarie’s lenders, including TIFIA, $344.5 million for the asset last fall.