Project sponsors in Europe are facing more and more difficulty when
acquiring conventional long-term bank loans for infrastructure projects.
The regulatory landscape for debt markets will evolve further with
implementation of Basel III requirements. Recently, the Asset Quality
Review under the European Central Bank's Comprehensive Assessment
process, and related pressures on banks' balance sheets, have
constrained bank long-term lending. This has led to much discussion on
non-conventional bank funding options for infrastructure deals in the
future. This book analyses the project bond financing solution in
detail, identifying all the specific features that make it highly
suitable for large capital intensive infrastructure projects. The first
part of the book assesses the main characteristics and prerequisites of
project finance, including public-private partnership, infrastructure
project assets and greenfield versus brownfield projects. It then
discusses the European infrastructure project finance market in detail,
before comparing bank conventional lending versus the project bond
solution. In the final part of the book, the author presents the Europe
2020 project bond initiative, and reveals a range of key case studies
and their findings.