The role of government: spend, spend, spend
The contrast between debt appetite and equity appetite in the infrastructure market could hardly be starker. Infrastructure funds were a feature of the boom years but appetite for them seems only to have grown since the markets turned: of the 10 largest unlisted infrastructure funds of all time, eight have been raised since May 2007.
There are two main approaches for infrastructure funds: those that focus on deals where the government is paying an availability charge (lower-risk deals as there is no demand risk); and those that also look at user-charge assets such as airports and water companies. Funds also divide into those prepared to undertake greenfield projects and those that focus solely on secondary-market...
