The UK government would own the conduit and take the first-loss risk in the vehicle. Management of the conduit would be outsourced to a third party – insiders suggest that one of the monoline guarantors is being considered. The conduit could be launched in the next three to six months.
The sharp rise in the cost of bank lending to infrastructure PPP/PFI deals in the UK has prompted the UK Treasury to examine radical new solutions to the funding requirements of its pipeline of upcoming projects. The PPP market has been hit by the disappearance of the monoline guarantee companies and the sharp reduction in bank liquidity. When the PFI concept was first launched in the early 1990s, deals were being done at 140 basis points over Libor – today banks are looking for between 250bp and 350bp to take similar risks. At the height of the boom deals were being priced as low as 40bp over Libor.
“The government is getting concerned about the terms of private money,” says an expert close to the situation. “There are several different ideas being worked on which flow from the premise that bank finance is too expensive.”
