Bruno Alves
Three pioneering managers discuss their efforts to capital.
Head of infrastructure debt Deborah Zurkow says the group might also invest in AllianzGI’s debt funds.
/February/News/gassled%2080x80.jpg "Moody’s joins S&P in warning of Gassled debt downgrade")
The ratings agency is warning Allianz Capital Partners, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority that forward-looking tariff cuts might lead to a downgrade of part of the consortium’s outstanding debt commitments.
The €50bn Connecting Europe Facility has seen its spending capacity cut to €29.3bn after EU leaders last week agreed to the first budget cut in the organisation’s history. The facility will be used to fund the EIB’s project bond initiative.
Standard & Poor’s estimates private debt sources – what it calls ‘shadow banking’ – can provide up to $25bn of project finance loans this year. However, it warns its ‘opaque nature’ carries certain risks.
.jpg "Ageas helps fund €300m French prisons PPP")
The insurance company is providing a 30-year, fixed rate tranche as part of a €100m loan put together by Natixis for a French prisons PPP. The deal is the first from a €2bn debt partnership between the French bank and Ageas, signed last October.
Ashurst’s Gonzalo Jimenez Blanco and José María Anarte offer the legal lowdown on the troubles affecting Spain’s roads sector.
.jpg "USS lends to Infracapital/Morgan Stanley water firm")
In its second such deal, the UK pension fund is providing £95m of 20-year class B inflation-linked financing to Affinity Water, owned by Infracapital and Morgan Stanley.
With 2012 coming to an end, it looks likely that it will be remembered as the year infrastructure debt really took off.
Separation between wholesale and retail price controls will go ahead, but Ofwat’s proposed ability to shift activities accounting for up to 40% of water firms’ total revenues outside of the current price control framework have been nixed.