The Global Opportunity Project Finance Round Table
From left: Gabriel Buck; Andrew Ivison; Malcolm Bairstow; Antony Oliver; Peter Chamley; Philippe
Gautier; Geoff Bee; Shyam Sankar; Manish Gupta
the Crossrail project insisting that everyone worked in a single base and using Project Wise to communicate. It is these things you do see now coming into projects worldwide to bring efficiency and quality. But I wouldn’t say there was particular innovation in financing –particularly when projects are publicly led. They are looking for value above all.
The panel finished on a discussion around the ability of the global project finance and delivery market to meet the challenges that lie ahead and offered their concluding thoughts. Q: How are you feeling about the future of project financing? What are your main concerns and hopes?
Manish Gupta On the whole I feel quite optimistic about the infrastructure sector. Whether I feel optimistic about the ability to invest the kind of money needed is another matter. We should never let the financing drive the structure of a project – the moment you do that you are heading for disaster. The financing simply allows that project to be delivered. But there is always a need for a very strong sponsor.
Geoff Bee We are definitely seeing growth in the sector. People now
realise that our infrastructure is falling apart around us and therefore there is a political will to invest. Whether we will get to those figures I’m not sure but certainly there is a big political imperative so plenty of opportunity.
Shyam Sankar There is a change to be met. Population in the UK is
predicted to grow over the next 20 years with more people wanting to live in cities. Infrastructure has to get better – but that $57tr number sounds enormous.
Peter Chamley Until two or three years ago it was always either
about replacing the stuff that is creaking or putting in the infrastructure that is needed to drive economic growth. But today, on top of that, we have now the effects of climate change and the need for resilience to cope with. The frequency and intensity of weather events is increasing and our investment will be about protecting economic activity as much driving new economic activity so there is a risk that it will be diluted. We will struggle to deliver everything.
40 GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY 2014 | ISSUE 01
Philippe Gautier This is happening in a very low interest rate
environment where there are very few opportunities to invest money. So the two are coming together in a perfect way.
Andrew Ivison I feel very positive about our sector both domestically
and internationally. One of the advantages we have is that there are broadly speaking only two well recognised international legal systems - US and English law. So we would expect to do very well in the international as well as the domestic market place. However, within the UK it is difficult to see how, as a nation, we are going to put in the huge amount of money that politicians say they want to see invested within the time horizons discussed. But even so, there will be plenty of opportunity.
Malcolm Bairstow I am very optimistic but if everything lands
on the scale that we are talking about it will be verging on the scary. My concern is capacity and skills where the whole industry has seen less investment. But on a positive note there is a feel good factor around infrastructure and that can only be good.
GO
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FINANCE
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