The EIB hopes that its project bond initiative will help it gracefully step back from the prominent lending role it has assumed following the global financial crisis. But the new initiative may originate another cycle of EIB-dependence.
Dalkia Polska, in which the Australian investor holds a 40% stake, has bought 85% of Warsaw district heating operator SPEC. Warsaw's heating network is the largest in the European Union.
The international law firm has recruited John Pierce as a partner in its Seattle corporate and finance practice from rival Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Roasati. Pierce specialises in the renewable energy sector.
A €110m add-on acquisition from utility E.ON gives EQT ownership of Sweden’s entire high-pressure natural gas transmission grid, running over 620km.
The Asia Pacific region accounted for more than 27% of global infrastructure projects by value in the second quarter of 2011, second only to Western Europe and well ahead of third-placed North America.
The Canadian pension follows the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board a year later in selling its 12% stake in the Australian toll road operator. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is said to be one of the buyers.
Africa Railways, a platform company of Egyptian private equity and infrastructure investor Citadel Capital, has secured a $40m loan from the African Development Bank as a key subsidiary shows improved performance. This is expected to be part of a ’much bigger’ future debt package.
Investors in renewable energy projects may benefit from the approval earlier this week of the UK’s infrastructure National Policy Statements, which include plans to speed up the approval process for such projects.
As more institutional investors buy infrastructure assets directly, they will be hoping that their risk/return calculations pay off.
AXA Private Equity, which earlier this week announced a major French wind farm investment, has now unveiled a new solar energy joint venture with Italian industrial company Tozzi Group. The joint venture builds on a partnership AXA and Tozzi formed in 2007.
As more institutional investors buy infrastructure assets directly, they will be hoping that their risk/return calculations pay off.
Having used several Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes as test cases, the UK’s Treasury now believes it can achieve £1.5bn of savings from the 495 PFI projects operational in England. The government has been fiercely critical of the costs of such schemes.
The Spanish bank was the most prolific mandated lead arranger of infrastructure financings globally in the second quarter of this year, having been involved in a wide variety of deals including by far the quarter’s largest – the $11.3bn Tours-Bordeaux high-speed rail project.
The winning consortium has achieved financial close for the Gunfleet Sands offshore transmission project in the UK. All of the equity for the project is being provided by INPP, the London-listed infrastructure investor, while Barclays, BNP Paribas and Lloyds are providing senior debt.
The Institute of Economic Affairs, an independent free market thinktank, has accused the UK government’s flagship £33bn High Speed 2 rail project of ‘flawed economics’ as well as having many other fundamental weaknesses.