Singapore launches initiatives to encourage institutional investors to finance infras

[CityFarmer]

To seek private institutional investors' help, to supplement the financial support to infrastructure projects? Infrastructure projects are usually having much longer-term, thus riskier. Are the private institutional investors, having bigger risk appetite than banks? I am not so sure. IMO, infrastructure projects should be mainly funded by gov, either directly or indirectly. What your view?

Singapore launches initiatives to encourage institutional investors to finance infrastructure projects

SINGAPORE (Oct 20): Singapore has launched three initiatives to encourage more private institutional investors help finance infrastructure projects.

The initiatives were unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the keynote opening address at the 6th World Bank-Singapore Infrastructure Finance Summit.

The first initiative is to promote better and more standardised project documentation to reduce perceptions of risks.

For instance, contracts of public-private-partnership should include clear termination, dispute resolution and other kinds of protection clauses, said Tharman.

The second initiative is to include benchmarks, robust performance measures and other analytics for infrastructure debt and equity instruments.

This would help institutional investors decide which asset class to invest in.

The third initiative is to develop infrastructure debt as a thicker segment of the infrastructure asset class.

Currently, less than 0.2% of the world's total funds under management by institutions goes into infrastructure debt due to the lack of benchmarks, said Tharman.

If developed, this would help banks recycle their capital and pass projects on to institutional investors when they have reached the operational stage.

Tharman also said that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has been actively building such an infrastructure debt takeout facility which will facilitate the transfer of infrastructure debt from banks to institutional investors.
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...astructure

[greengiraffe]

To seek private institutional investors' help, to supplement the financial support to infrastructure projects? Infrastructure projects are usually having much longer-term, thus riskier. Are the private institutional investors, having bigger risk appetite than banks? I am not so sure. IMO, infrastructure projects should be mainly funded by gov, either directly or indirectly. What your view?

Singapore launches initiatives to encourage institutional investors to finance infrastructure projects

SINGAPORE (Oct 20): Singapore has launched three initiatives to encourage more private institutional investors help finance infrastructure projects.

The initiatives were unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the keynote opening address at the 6th World Bank-Singapore Infrastructure Finance Summit.

The first initiative is to promote better and more standardised project documentation to reduce perceptions of risks.

For instance, contracts of public-private-partnership should include clear termination, dispute resolution and other kinds of protection clauses, said Tharman.

The second initiative is to include benchmarks, robust performance measures and other analytics for infrastructure debt and equity instruments.

This would help institutional investors decide which asset class to invest in.

The third initiative is to develop infrastructure debt as a thicker segment of the infrastructure asset class.

Currently, less than 0.2% of the world's total funds under management by institutions goes into infrastructure debt due to the lack of benchmarks, said Tharman.

If developed, this would help banks recycle their capital and pass projects on to institutional investors when they have reached the operational stage.

Tharman also said that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has been actively building such an infrastructure debt takeout facility which will facilitate the transfer of infrastructure debt from banks to institutional investors.
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...astructure

Singapore govt too rich so unlikely to have investors participate in domestic infrastructure projects... for eg... do u see investors becoming equity partners of local roads in return for ERP?

Perhaps the most established infra mkt in the southern hemisphere is Australia and that is where the govts are bankrupt that leads to privatisations and Investment Bankers having a hand to repackage infrastructure projects into unlisted and listed vehicles.

So far the closest alternatives on SGX are Hutch Port, KIT and the soon to disappear MIIF and perhaps APTT... so far so disappointing really...

[CityFarmer]

I assume, the context of the speech from DPM Tharman, is Singapore infrastructure projects. There are non-existence in the past, thus need new initiatives to promote for the near future.