Project Finance Consulting

✈️ Why "New" Outshines "Better": Kenya’s Bold Move to a Greenfield Airport! For decades, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) has been the beating heart of East African aviation. But as the "Silicon Savannah" grows, we must ask: Is a renovation enough to sustain a digital revolution? The recent announcement regarding a new world-class international airport (targeted for April/May 2026) marks a shift in strategy. Instead of retrofitting an aging hub, Kenya is looking to build the future from the ground up. 🌍 Strategic Importance: More Than Just a Runway Regional Dominance: As neighboring hubs expand, a greenfield airport at Konza Technopolis cements Kenya’s position as the premier gateway to Africa. The Konza Synergy: Placing an airport adjacent to a Smart City creates a seamless logistics-tech corridor. Imagine high-value tech exports moving from a data center to a cargo hold in minutes. De-congesting Nairobi: Moving a portion of international traffic 60km southeast reduces the urban strain on Nairobi and catalyzes the development of the "Greater Metropolitan" area. Modern Standards: A new build allows for Category III (CAT III) landing systems, larger cargo facilities, and carbon-neutral terminal designs that old infrastructure simply cannot accommodate. 💰 The Financing Model: A Public-Private Partnership (PPP) With an estimated cost of Ksh 264 Billion ($2 Billion), the government is moving away from debt-heavy exchequer funding. The most viable model? Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT). Private Capital: Private investors bear the construction risk and initial capital outlay. Operational Efficiency: Global airport operators bring world-class management standards. Fiscal Responsibility: By using a PPP, the state protects its balance sheet while ensuring the project is delivered on a commercial timeline rather than a political one. Is it time to stop patching the old and start building the new? Let’s discuss in the comments. 👇 #Aviation #KenyaEconomy #KonzaTechnopolis #Infrastructure #PPP #JKIA #FutureOfTravel

Unlocking capital is one of the most critical factors to scaling a circular economy for plastics. Doing so requires us to reduce risk, strengthen the investability of projects, and develop financing approaches that can mobilise capital at scale.    Many waste management and recycling projects struggle to access financing because of perceived risk, limited operating track records, and uncertainty around future revenues – challenges that are particularly acute in emerging markets.    Blended finance can help address these barriers by bringing together public, private, and philanthropic capital, while concessional funding can help de-risk projects and reduce the cost of capital.    The Green Investments Partnership (GIP) puts this approach into practice. Established under Singapore’s Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P) initiative and managed by Pentagreen Capital, GIP brings together governments, development finance institutions, commercial banks, and the Alliance. Within this structure, the Alliance participates through a junior interest position and provides technical expertise in assessing recycling technologies. GIP recently reached US$800 million in commitments at its second close, to support sustainable infrastructure and transition projects across South and Southeast Asia.    In Indonesia, our technical expertise and concessional contribution to Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)’s Project-Specific Window have helped unlock approximately US$150 million in sovereign lending for the Solid Waste Management for Sustainable Urban Development Project, supporting investments to strengthen integrated solid waste management services for 11 million people across more than 10 cities and districts.    Financing structures are only part of the equation. Projects also need clear pathways to profitability and greater certainty around future revenues. Long-term purchasing commitments can strengthen bankability, while effective policy frameworks, including EPR, can support the long-term economic viability of collection, sorting, and recycling systems.    There is no single solution. Mobilising capital at scale will require us to address risk, strengthen project pipelines, and bring together different sources of capital in ways that make investment possible. 

With climate change posing unprecedented global challenges, the Water as Leverage framework provides an excellent way for transformative, inclusive urban water projects. The framework benefits cities in developing sustainable solutions and unlocking otherwise underutilized private-sector financing. The framework applies the eight principles—from fostering inclusivity and scalability to integrating systemic perspectives—and #WaL initiatives could support scaling up water security and innovation where water connects people, economies, and ecosystems. WaL can support and catalyse a global movement in urban water resilience for cities, private investors, and communities alike. Water-related projects often face challenges attracting private sector investors because of perceived risks, high upfront costs, and limited immediate revenue returns. However, the WaL approach offers a compelling framework to mitigate these barriers: Clear Revenue Opportunities: Projects like Demak's mangrove restoration created direct economic benefits—improved aquaculture incomes, ecotourism activities, and carbon trading credit mechanisms—while reducing coastal erosion. By monetizing ecosystem services, these initiatives become attractive to investors. Blended Finance Mechanisms: The WaL framework encourages diverse funding approaches, including grants, public-private partnerships, and innovative tools like green bonds. These mechanisms de-risk projects and make them more appealing to private investors seeking fiscal returns and reputational gains from investing in sustainability. Long-Term Sustainability: Strong emphasis on adaptive operations and maintenance ensures projects remain functional and practical. For example, enhanced flood defences implemented through Rebuild by Design in Lower Manhattan attracted significant private funding due to their meticulous feasibility studies and maintenance protocols. Proof of Concept: Demonstration pilots, such as the Water Balance Pilot in Chennai, prove scalable and replicable solutions that private investors can confidently support. Guideline is here https://lnkd.in/gg2Ej5V9 Sandra Schoof Meike van Ginneken Kotchakorn Voraakhom Wiwandari Handayani Elijah Hutchinson

🌏 Catalyzing a Greener Future: Financial Market Innovation as a Cornerstone for ASEAN's Sustainable Ambitions 🌏 The journey toward a sustainable global future hinges on the crucial role of finance in channeling capital toward environmentally and socially responsible initiatives. In the dynamic and rapidly developing region of Southeast Asia (ASEAN), financial market innovation is an imperative for accelerating regional sustainable ambitions. With its diverse economies and significant vulnerability to climate change, ASEAN must leverage innovative financial instruments to bridge the substantial funding gap for green infrastructure and transition projects. The Role of Financial Innovation Financial innovation in ASEAN is transforming the landscape of sustainable development. Traditional reliance on bank financing is giving way to a more diversified approach, with market-based instruments like green bonds, sustainability-linked loans, and green sukuks gaining prominence. ✅ Green and Sustainability Bonds: Countries like Thailand and Singapore have emerged as leaders in the region's sustainable bond market. Thailand's issuance of sovereign sustainability bonds has successfully funded large-scale infrastructure projects, such as electric mass transit lines. Meanwhile, Singapore's ambition to become a green finance hub has driven exponential growth in green debt, particularly for green building projects. ✅ Sustainability-Linked Loans: These loans, which tie interest rates to a company's performance on ESG metrics, incentivize corporate sustainability transitions. This provides a flexible financing solution that directly rewards progress toward environmental and social goals. ✅ Regional Collaboration: The development of a common language through the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance is a pivotal step. This initiative provides clarity and confidence for investors by defining what constitutes a sustainable activity. By creating a unified framework, ASEAN can attract more international and regional investment, ensuring that capital is directed effectively toward the most impactful projects. Accelerating Regional Ambitions The true power of financial innovation lies in its ability to accelerate regional ambitions. By mobilizing both private and public capital, these markets can fund the transition away from fossil fuels, support the development of renewable energy, and build more resilient and sustainable urban centers. The integration of technology, such as Green FinTech, further enhances this process by improving data transparency, risk management, and the overall efficiency of sustainable investments. ASEAN can not only mitigate environmental risks but also create a new, greener pathway for economic growth and prosperity. #SustainableFinance #ASEAN #GreenFinance #FinancialInnovation #ESG #ClimateAction https://lnkd.in/gYqfbHwJ

In a project finance financial model working capital movements tend to be most material at the transition points. Here are some common mistakes to avoid: 1. In a greenfield transaction model, watch out for the delay in the first period of operations. Cash is tight and the first debt payment needs to be sculpted - if you overstate revenues you're going to cause a problem when reality arrives. If it's six monthly modelling and there's a one month delay on revenues, but operations only started two months before the end of the period, you need to delay 1/2 of revenue in that period not 1/6. 2. In an operational model, be careful how you handle the release of the receivables/payables balances at the end of the historic period. The model's forecasts are usually conceptually simple - they don't tend to contemplate payables balances that won't come due for years (or ever) yet still exist for odd accounting reasons. The historic accounts are sometimes a bit less straightforward! If you naively jump from actual balance sheet balances to "clean" model forecasts you can cause a big (incorrect) cash outflow to be modelled in the first forecast period, which could plunge your project into lockup, or worse. Have a mechanism to release those unusual balances separately, and speak with your accounts team to understand the time frame they should unwind (or be written off) over. 3. In an M&A model, particularly if there are multiple entities involved, make sure you understand which of the current balance sheet balances will transfer with the project and which are staying with the current shareholders. Your valuation must consider only the relevant ones. 4. For all models, read the documentation thoroughly and think about the mechanism that's described and not just the numbers mentioned. A revenue that's invoiced monthly at the end of the month and paid within 15 days - sounds like there should be 15 days of revenue outstanding at the end of each modelled period, right? Nope! At the end of each modelling period that's a full month outstanding, so the modelled delay should be more like 30 days.

$2 billion for 100,000 GPUs. Approved. Financed. Built. Vietnam just closed the deal an it's a genuinely staggering number for a market that, barely one year ago, had not built anything above 60 megawatts. The news gets better: Vietnam just opened its data center market to full foreign ownership. Demand is unmistakable —the market is set to triple by 2031, and construction costs there are the cheapest in the region. Every major hyperscaler is circling: Google, Alibaba, Microsoft, plus billions in projects already under construction. Here's the part nobody's pricing in. A hyperscale data center isn't financed like a factory. It needs a twenty-year power contract locked in before a lender will touch it. Vietnamese banks have never underwritten that kind of risk before. The government just built the legal mechanism to make it possible —a direct power purchase agreement framework, only a few months old. So the capital is arriving faster than the financing infrastructure meant to support it. Every mega-deal right now is effectively a test case for whether a Vietnamese bank can hold this exposure on its own balance sheet, or whether it needs a foreign project finance partner every single time. This distance, between the deals getting signed and the local system built to finance them, is where the opportunity sits for anyone who understands project finance well enough to structure around it. --MORE INSIGHTS & FREE BOOK CHAPTERS-- -- https://lnkd.in/evr8QpUe -- #Vietnam #DataCenters #ProjectFinance #DigitalInfrastructure #HyperscaleDataCenters #PowerPurchaseAgreement #EmergingMarkets #FrontierMarkets #SoutheastAsia #ASEAN #ForeignDirectInvestment #InfrastructureInvesting #EnergyInfrastructure #GreenEnergy #RenewableEnergy #PublicPrivatePartnership #InvestmentManagement #AssetManagement #WealthManagement #PrivateCapital #CapitalAdvisory #InstitutionalInvesting #AIInfrastructure #CloudComputing #BankingSector #StructuredFinance #CapitalMarkets #FrontierInvesting #EmergingMarketInvesting #InvestorConfidence

One of the Biggest Misconceptions About Fundraising Many project owners believe the hardest thing to find is capital. After years of working with investors, lenders, and funding institutions, I've learned something different. Capital is often available. Bankable projects are not. Recently, I gained access to a funding mandate capable of deploying up to USD 30 million per project in Indonesia. The sectors are broad: # Greenfield developments # Construction # Mining # Selected real estate opportunities Yet the first question is rarely: "How much funding do you need?" The first question is usually: "Who is behind the project?" Before looking at projections, investors look at credibility. Before looking at returns, they look at execution capability. Before looking at opportunities, they look at risk. Many projects fail to secure funding not because they lack potential. They fail because governance is weak, reporting is unclear, documentation is incomplete, or the sponsor lacks a track record that investors can trust. The lesson is simple: Capital follows confidence. And confidence is built through preparation, transparency, execution, and reputation. In today's market, finding capital is not always the challenge. Becoming fundable is. #Indonesia

I am delighted to share my latest op-ed for Project Syndicate, co-authored with Sean Kidney, CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative. Against the backdrop of mounting headwinds hampering global climate action and the prohibitive high interest rates burdening numerous green projects in developing nations, the Global South is in urgent need of alternative financing solutions to underpin its low-carbon transition. In our article, we delve into how China’s RMB-denominated bond markets - specifically the "trifecta" of onshore Panda Bonds, offshore Dim Sum Bonds, and Free Trade Zone (#FTZ) offshore bonds - are emerging as compelling low-cost avenues for funding green initiatives across the developing world. Key takeaways: 🟢 Cost Efficiency: Thanks to RMB interest rates that are notably lower than USD rates, issuers from countries including Egypt and Brazil have recently tapped into these Chinese markets to secure green capital at yields below 3.5%. 🟢 Strategic Access: These bond markets serve as a direct bridge, linking issuers to the world’s largest green supply chain alongside cost-competitive green technologies. 🟢 Risk Mitigation Guarantees: We explore approaches for multilateral development banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to offer risk-mitigation mechanisms tailored for Global South issuers of green bonds in these Chinese markets. These markets hold great potential to channel more sustainable financing to the Global South. This potential can be unleashed through stepped-up efforts to boost market awareness, enhance liquidity, and expand the range of risk-mitigation tools. 🔗 Read our full Op-Ad here: https://lnkd.in/guTPQmVt #ClimateFinance #GreenBonds #RMB #SustainableFinance #PandaBonds #GlobalSouth

🌡️ As climate change accelerates, it’s never been more urgent for DFIs, impact investors, philanthropists, and governments to step up investment in innovative, scalable solutions that build the Adaptation and Resilience (A&R) of smallholder farmers and rural communities across Africa and South Asia. I’m proud to share early lessons from our A&R investments through the British International Investment Kinetic Climate Innovation Facility. These initiatives are already demonstrating how blended finance and catalytic capital can unlock new models for climate adaptation. Highlighted investments include our commitments to: 💦 SunCulture: Leveraging carbon credits to make solar irrigation systems more affordable for smallholder farmers in Kenya - helping them adapt to drought, double their yields, and cut emissions. 🌱 Grow Indigo: Supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture in India by using carbon credits to incentivise sustainable practices - aiming to reach 191,000 farmers and improve yields by up to 10% per hectare. 👩🌾 BlueOrchard Finance Ltd InsuResilience Fund II: Expanding access to climate insurance products for millions of households and MSMEs in emerging markets, helping them better withstand climate shocks. 🌊 Meridiam TURF Coastal Resilience Project: Backing the development of climate-resilient infrastructure in Nouakchott, Mauritania, to protect vulnerable communities from coastal flooding and create new economic opportunities. These examples show the power of blended finance to de-risk innovation, crowd in private capital, and deliver real impact for those most affected by climate change. Please do read the full case study for more insights: #adaptation #resilience #developmentfinance #impactinvesting

🌿 I just was looking for a good compendium of all financial instruments that can genuinely help scale biomanufacturing and the bioeconomy — from early-stage innovation to industrial deployment — and here you go 😄 This OECD policy brief offers one of the clearest and most comprehensive overviews I have seen of the full financing toolbox: blended finance, guarantees, concessional loans, contracts-for-difference, green and sustainability-linked bonds, and market-creation mechanisms. What makes it particularly valuable is its systemic perspective, linking finance, risk-sharing, governance and market design, rather than treating instruments in isolation. For policymakers, investors and industry alike, this is a practical reference on how to crowd in private capital, de-risk first-of-a-kind projects and accelerate scale-up — exactly the challenge we face when moving from pilots to competitive bio-based value chains. ☄️ Financing instruments and policy levers to harness biomanufacturing for climate, biodiversity and growth Worth bookmarking — and using — in current debates on competitiveness, clean industrial policy and the future of sustainable manufacturing. #Bioeconomy #Biomanufacturing #SustainableFinance #BlendedFinance #GreenBonds #IndustrialPolicy #CleanIndustrialDeal #Competitiveness #InnovationFinance #ClimateAction #OECD