Infrastructure finance: Brazil faces up to infrastructure gaps

LULA WAS INDIGNANT: "We can’t do this project because of a catfish?" When Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, first announced plans to construct the country’s largest hydroelectric power hub, on the Madeira river, the environmentalists put a spanner in the works. Their primary concern was the dourada catfish that migrate up the river each year. But as the president vented his anger at how the catfish could scupper his plans, it was the financiers who put another catfish in the works. Where was the money going to come from to finance such a project?

"There is a gap in [financial] creativity. There is a gap in [financial] alternatives. It is these gaps that all the banks are working to fill – with the projected quantity of infrastructure projects, these gaps need filling," says Jean Pierre Dupui, head of credit markets at Santander...