Key Takeaways: ➢    AI’s growing computational demand requires infrastructure investors to prioritize energy-efficient data centers and digital infrastructure. ➢    AI is effective in narrow tasks, but long-term infrastructure investments demand human judgment and a deep understanding of complex, domain-specific nuances for strategic planning. ➢    Preserving institutional knowledge in an aging infrastructure workforce will rely on integrating AI with human expertise to effectively navigate the complexities of long-term infrastructure investments. The…

Heating and cooling of buildings contributes significantly to the human carbon footprint (about 40% in the EU). Modern district energy systems, using renewables and heat recycling, could contribute substantially to decarbonization and greater energy efficiency and security. However, district heating and cooling networks (DHC) play only a sub-ordinated role in public discussions about a more sustainable energy future. The main focus is still on renewable energy generation and wider electrification…

With mainstream markets in trouble, infrastructure looks like the place to be for many investors. Let’s look at the bigger picture. Can infrastructure investments deliver what they promise? And as traditional infrastructure is changing fast, how can investors adapt? The short answer is: Looking forward, many new opportunities are emerging, but managing infrastructure assets will become more challenging, more costly, and perhaps even more political than in the past. Key…

Our young and beloved asset class is going through its first cycle and suitably proving itself. Expected returns for core risk profiles are in the 9 – 12% range nowadays. That range used to be 6 – 9% very recently, and 10 – 12% in the early years, up until 2011-12. For a long time, since the emergence of infrastructure as an asset class two decades ago, expected returns were…

Fortement enrichie et remaniée, la nouvelle version de cet ouvrage de référence sur le marché francophone constitue, plus que jamais, une véritable encyclopédie qui permet au lecteur d’entrer dans une compréhension à la fois systémique et approfondie de l’ensemble des nombreuses matières mobilisées par le montage des opérations PPP et financement de projet. L’ouvrage aborde ainsi les dimensions organisationnelle, juridique, de gestion des risques, comptable, fiscale, etc. et s’étend particulièrement sur les différents…

Renewable energy is surrounded today by conflicting signals: it is hailed by politicians as essential to sustainable growth and energy sovereignty, yet its subsidies are being questioned and its profits are being capped by some governments.    The majority of low carbon energy investments have been directed at intermittent technologies such as wind and solar , built far from the main consumption areas, with electricity storage and network adaptation lagging…

With the support of LTIIA, EDHECInfra recently published a new paper “Is Infrastructure Shockproof?” examining the resilience of infrastructure equity investments during market downturns, 2000-2022. The following interview with Vincent Levita, Chairman of LTIIA and CEO of InfraVia Capital Partners, about the paper’s findings and its industry relevance, is extracted from EDHECInfra Newsletter-Dec2022. In the latest research paper “Is Infrastructure Shockproof?”, why was it important for LTIIA to address the…

by Georg Inderst Innovation districts are a growing feature in cities across the world. Their main purpose is to boost a region’s economic and social development by concentrating high-tech companies and research institutions in one place. Governments try to seed ‘the next Silicon Valley’, while the private sector can find a modern and publicly supported business environment. Institutional investors are also becoming interested in this area. So what are the…

By Frederic Blanc-Brude, Wilhelm Schmundt, Thomas Bumberger, Roman Friedrich, Bernhard Georgii, Abhishek Gupta, Leonard Lum, and Maikel Wilms In 2022, private investor global assets under management for infrastructure projects will reach a record high of $950 billion. And as the number of infrastructure investors increases, some strategic questions are increasing in importance. How should investors select their exposures to different segments of the infrastructure universe? What risks and returns can…

The European PPP Expertise Centre (EPEC), part of the advisory services of the European Investment Bank, has been set up to help public authorities across Europe deliver better public-private partnerships (PPPs). Its main mission is to share good practices amongst its membership (EU member PPP units), and more generally the public sector, on how to prepare, procure and manage PPP projects. In this context, EPEC has just released a new…

The 6th PPP week held early December 2021 by the Istanbul PPP Center of Excellence convened Public-Private Partnership practitioners from both the public and private sectors across the world (Representatives from over 40 countries participated) to discuss the current status of PPPs and share ways in which they can be improved and better  implemented in a world beset by pandemic and climate change challenges. Proof of the ongoing relevance of…

Public budget constraints are determined by 3 intercorrelated parameters at the macro level: Revenues (taxes), Expenses (sum of both current expenditures and investment) – the difference being the budget deficit – and Debt. But there is a flaw in the investment decision process: the usual budgetary assessment identifies the costs and risks, but not the potential revenues for the public sector. However, as any manager of a private company knows,…

For years, infrastructure has struggled with the lack of transparency, lack of bankable projects, poor risk management, and lack of liquidity. The use of big data and machine learning can help us make a breakthrough. Project development and project finance are challenging businesses. While many investors are keen to invest in well-developed, sustainable infrastructure projects, not enough bankable projects are coming to market. It can take years to develop and…

Investment requirements are huge in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDE), with development spending predominantly coming from the public budgets. The private sector is facing growing calls for a stronger engagement to alleviate investment gaps in particular for infrastructure, climate and other SDG-related investments. However, external finance to EMDEs was stagnating even before the coronavirus crisis 2020-2021. The little progress made over the years has been mostly concentrated in a…

Q:  How has the energy transition narrative evolved in recent years?  SL: It is not just a change in the narrative. There has been an existential change. I started out in the energy sector 15 years ago. Back then, the world was totally different. Energy transition wasn’t even spoken about. At Meridiam, we are well placed to help contribute to that transition. We launched a dedicated fund to energy transition…

Since its creation in 2005, Meridiam has put ESG at the heart of its investment process, operationally and concretely. Since September 2019, we have also adopted the statutes of a mission-driven organization*. We’ve made this choice for reasons of both coherence and efficiency: being a mission-driven company reinforces our alignment with our LPs. Embedding that we are a mission-driven company into our statutes enables us to go one step further….

As we’re entering the most acute stage of the coronavirus crisis, it’s natural that  all thoughts and efforts are concentrated on the ways and means to  save lives and rescue the economy  from effects of the pandemic. But we shouldn’t forget  about  the longer term threat to our lifestyle. Just like a number of political  leaders are still  climato- sceptics,  many (often the same populist  kind, it has to  be…

The current coronavirus crisis has exposed many weaknesses, one of them being the chronic underinvestment in social infrastructure in most countries – developed and emerging. In fact, after a long period of neglect and decay, investment needs and investment gaps were already huge before this crisis. The financial crisis 2007/09, austerity policies and other unfavourable regional developments, led to a more or less pronounced dearth of social investment by the…

ADP (Aeroports de Paris) privatization has been put  off to better times. Brookfield AM has just  shelved  its plan to sell a port terminal  in Australia. All  around the world, infra asset sales are delayed due to  travel ban preventing  prospective buyers to  view the asset on site, and to public markets free fall. At a time when people are explicitly  requested to  stay  at home, most transport infrastructure operators,…

The Renewable energy sector, for a while now, has been working at achieving a generation cost that is lower than that of the power available on the current power grids. It has been a holy grail, a tipping point, for the economic viability of a clean energy generation project- thus the indicator of speed and direction of the alternative energy industry. In the capital-intensive solar power generation, this has been…

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) constitute the new global development agenda for 2030 and a universal reporting referential that will hopefully drive the entire investment community in the same direction. Composed of 17 goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators, the SDG framework incites all public and private actors to reinforce their engagement and efforts towards sustainability. Meridiam’s ESG Due Diligence (DD) process was primarily based, until 2018, on…

Established in 2008, InfraVia currently manages 4 infrastructure funds totaling €4bn of assets under management. InfraVia is also a key member of LTIIA since the beginning with its CEO and founder having just been elected as a LTIIA Board member. InfraVia just announced the launch of a new fund dedicated to invest in tech companies at scale-up stage. Why diversifying in the tech markets after more than ten years in…

Infrastructure investors willing to allocate more capital to Emerging Markets (EM) are faced with a dearth of identified investable projects.  You managed to fully load your first Africa fund in just 4 years where others are still struggling to find the right opportunities : How did you do it? Emerging markets, Africa in particular, have tremendous needs.  The question is not to identify projects but to bring them to a…

Af2i is a French non for-profit association aiming at representing the interests of Institutional Investors. Created almost 18 years ago, it regroups presently 81 institutions who manage together more than 2.5 trillion euros, which corresponds to 85% of the French market, the fourth in size worldwide. Af2i helps its members by undertaking workshops, by publishing guides and organizes several events to inform its members and promote their views as well…

In this video-podcast LTIIA Executive director argues that Professional associations like LTIIA have a specific responsibility to engage with both: 1-their members from Investors community to foster awareness & develop appropriate Renewable Energy-performance indicators and relevant tracking methodology to monitor alignment of investment portfolios with objectives 2- Public authorities, regulators, and beyond , with the broader community , in order to: – sensitize them to enabling environment prerequisites for private…

In January 2019, California power utility PG&E filed for bankruptcy, the first ever large infrastructure corporate default directly linked to Climate change: this was a clear wake-up  call  to  investors (Insurers are already  well aware of it)  makes a clear point that climate adaptation  risks are materializing here and now: we’re no longer talking  about  some future scenario, but  a very present development. Late February 2019, LTIIA held a thematic…

Dear members and readers, A lot has happened in the infrastructure investors landscape since LTIIA was created in fall  2014. The very notion of long term private Infrastructure investment as a catalyser of sustainable development of communities and countries was still in its infancy then. Fast forward to  2019: While still not a mainstream asset class, Infrastructure is no longer a  peripheral “niche”, on the margins of Private equity and real…