It’s not that simple, this is actually a very good result.
A few items have been de-scoped from the project - these include Sydney Gateway and, Rozelle Interchange which will now be funded 100% by the NSW government rather than by Sydney Motorway Corporation. There will also be a state government capital grant of $1.6 towards Stage 3 (mainline tunnels). The cost of all of these contributions is $5.3b which needs to be taken out of the sale price. This leaves $4b in cash back to the NSW government.
That’s only half of the story since the NSW government still owns the other 49%, which has been valued at $9b. If you think about the government contributions so far, the NSW government has put in $3.6b in equity, thrown in the M5 West concession (worth about $2b) and the Australian Government threw in $1.5b (this was a capital grant, so they get nothing back for this). Effectively all of this adds to $7.1 which has been contributed from all levels of government so far for a stake that is now worth $9b.
Long story short, the NSW government has an equity stake worth $3.4b more than what they have contributed (or $1.9b more if you include the Australian Government contribution) PLUS $4b in cash that can be spent elsewhere. Obviously the equity stake is only worth $9b on paper - this could increase if traffic forecasts exceed expectations or could be worth nothing if the road goes bankrupt.
But there is more. WestConnex will raise $2.2b of debt on transaction close and distribute half of this to the NSW Government, so at this point they will get $1.1b cash, but their equity stake will go down to about $7.9b at current value.
Net result, the road is basically free, plus a $7.4b net paper profit to taxpayers.
It takes a bit of working out, but there are a lot of details here:
https://yourir.info/resources/a5095...cl.asx/3A499896/TCL_Investor_Presentation.pdf