Project Financing Initiative

Private finance initiative (PFI) is where the debt incurred by a project is repaid by the income that comes from the completed asset. other names and forms Started by entrepreneurs in America extracting oil in Texas. The project would be financed against the asset in the ground (value of the oil). Set up because projects became too large and companies didn't have the assets to secure a loan against. The financial reward of successful oil extraction was large enough for the lenders to accept the risk of failure. PFI has been commonly used in the UK since it was implemented in 1992 by John Major leader of the Conservative government. one of the largest projects using this method being the channel tunnel between England and France. PFI is used all over the world but primarily in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the U.S., Australia, Canada, South Africa but is also used in pioneering countries such as Chile and the Netherlands.

Financial Management Structure

The procedure involves private companies coming together to form the special purpose vehicle (SPV). This would typically consist of at least one contractor, facilities manager and financiers. These institutions are required to provide some capital to ensure their commitment to the project but this is not enough to fund the whole project. Banks are then approached to provide some financial backing. Following this a thorough risk and feasibility study has to be carried out to ensure that the return on the project is worth the initial investment.

Various formats of PFI BOOT or BOT build-operate-own-transfer or build-operate-transfer is where the private entity constructs the asset and then operates it for a concession period arranged with the public sector entity. This concession period allows the private entity to recover its debts and create a profit before transferring the asset to the public sector. Sometimes it is not appropriate for the private sector entity to own the asset so the public sector will take ownership immediately even though it is operated by a private company.

BOO build-own-operate works the same except the asset is kept privately and not exchanged after the concession period often because the asset no longer has any remaining value.

DBFO Design-Build-Finance-Operate is similar to BOO except with the added responsibility of Design on the private sector entity. This is becoming the preferred method of PFI used in the UK.

DBFO format PFIs are recently becoming more popular because there is no transfer of the asset so a long term contract is made focus is on provision of service rather than facility because only the service is purchased, private sector handles procurement, ownership and operation The project is defined by output (service) rather than input

Key words:

Equity - This is money provided by the sponsors or shareholders. Dividends are returned on the equity only after all other debts and interest is paid off. In the case of project failure dividends may not be returned on the equity so this is where the risk lies. Usually a large dividend is expected as a reward for taking on such a high risk.

Senior debt - this is money borrowed from banks or other financial institutions and is the first money to be payed off on a PFI project. This can be unsecured or secured as explained earlier.

Concession- This is the period where the public sector allows the private sector entity to own, operate the asset by charging users for a service.

Other names and forms

A sign of its complexity is the many names and variations it has. PFI can also be known as non-recourse (or limited recourse if mixed with other financing) unsecured or off-balance-sheet financing. Non-recourse means that the financial lenders have no recourse to claim against if the project is a failure. It is unsecured because the loan is not secured by any assets other than those of the project itself and its future income. It is called off balance sheet because the capital invested in the project will not appear on the balance sheet of the parent company. Being off-balance sheet also gave tax advantages to these projects. Private financing can take different forms but are fundamentally very similar. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) always involves both private and public sectors sharing the benefits of sale, transfer or exploitation of an asset but this is not always financed by PFI sometimes it can be paid for with the public sector capital. It should be noted that PFI is separate to privatisation because in the former, the asset or service remains public, in the latter a public service is being transferred to the private sector.

Differences Project financing differs to conventional financing (which is provided by the parent company’s capital or revenue expenditure) by being a stand-alone entity. PFI is generally associated with larger complex projects which become more complex with the added difficulty of financial planning. This project finance entity has a limited life where as a normal corporate entity continues its life indefinitely over many different projects.

Relevance Finance is important to a project because it is often the largest cost in a project particularly on longer duration projects. This is because the interest on loans used to finance the project can start at 20% but can rapidly increase during the project life-cycle until the loan is paid off. This is financing cost will be much greater than the costs of materials, labour , design and construction. In March 2014 the UK government estimated their portfolio of PFI projects has a total capital value of £56549.5 Million spread over 728 projects. [2]

When is Project Finance appropriate?

PFI solutions are best used instead of direct financing when it is necessary to transfer risk to the private sector and this improves value for money. Cases where a combination of sponsors produces greater financial leverage than they would individually. Large projects of over $1 billion will benefit from using PF because of the large capital required to carry out the project which is too much for one single company. It also mitigates some of the risk which can be high in for example a large natural resource exploitation project where new technology is being pioneered.

Ideal projects for project financing are those that once built will be significantly more valuable than the cost to produce them. have little uncertainty in the finish date capable to function economically independently where tax shield benefits are gained from the extra leverage of combined sponsors Politically sensitive projects where minimal disclosure to the public is an advantage Projects that span over more than one country so the conventional financing methods would also be complex between different countries’ public sector entities.

When isn't it appropriate?

When conventional public financing or corporate financing is a safer or more profitable approach. Projects with an uncertain completion date are difficult to financial manage because it is unclear when the debt can be paid off. Projects where it is uncertain whether the asset will provide the necessary returns to pay off its debts and produce dividends. In the UK the Royal armouries museum was built as a PFI project but it didn’t attract enough visitors to produce the required revenue to pay off the debts as arranged. In the UK many projects set up by the government have been criticised for using PFI methods when (before risk) the cost of the project would be significantly lower as a conventionally financed project. The PFI method only became marginally advantageous after the cost of risk was calculated. From experience it has been shown that projects with high risk are not suitable for PFI funding. These are particularly demand risk (whether the asset will create the projected revenue) and technological risk (when using frontier technologies that have not been tried and tested).