Friday, February 27, 2009
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Royal Bank of Scotland
One thing a project finance banker needs to be is flexible. Growing competitive pressure from leveraged finance, capital markets and aggressive infrastructure funds mean that the rules of the game are changing – fast. Royal Bank of Scotland, Euromoney’s global project finance house for 2007, is well aware of this. "The definition of infrastructure is changing," says Phil Hall, head of origination for infrastructure finance. "We are working alongside our corporate and leveraged finance teams more and more – the edges between these departments are increasingly blurred." Global project finance reached $221 billion in 2006 – a record volume. This business was split fairly evenly between western Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and north America, with north America achieving the fastest rate of growth: up from a 16% market share to 20%. The potential of this market is vast and RBS is enviably well positioned to take advantage of this. "Infrastructure projects in the US are still the preserve of the European banks from a structuring perspective," says Tom Hardy, managing director and global head of project finance and export finance at RBS.