CommentaryInsightsPerspectivesExplainers
Archive
Matching these filters: 10 pieces
Pieces
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What financial close means on an infrastructure project
Financial close is a single date on which every financing document signs and the lenders' money becomes a binding commitment. By the end you will know what has to be true on that day, how it differs from the announcements that come before it, and why it is the only one worth believing.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What a permitting timeline is made of
A permit is the last document in a sequence, not a single decision. By the end you will be able to name the separate stages a permitting clock runs through, and say which of them a given reform would actually shorten.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What a debt service coverage ratio tests
A coverage ratio is one division sum written into a loan agreement, and almost every argument about it is an argument about the definitions on either side of the line. By the end you will know what goes in the numerator, what the denominator fixes, and why a ratio measured in a good year says little about a bad one.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What a completion guarantee covers and when it falls away
Between financial close and the day a plant works, a project has debt and no revenue. A completion guarantee is the sponsor's promise to stand in that gap. By the end you will know what triggers its release, what it absorbs while it lasts, and why the release date is negotiated harder than the amount.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What a revenue pledge is and what it does not promise
A revenue pledge hands bondholders one named stream of money and shuts them out of everything else. By the end you will know the order the money leaves the account, the covenant that keeps the stream large enough, and the risks the pledge quietly leaves with the public.
- ExplainerDevelopment Finance
What a municipal bond pays for and who repays it
A municipal bond is a loan from investors to a government. By the end you will know what the money is allowed to buy, which pocket the repayment comes out of, and why two bonds sold by the same city in the same week can rest on completely different promises.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What contingency in a capital budget is for
Contingency is neither padding nor a slush fund. By the end you will know what it is sized against, who is allowed to release it, and why a budget with none in it is not a cheaper budget.
- ExplainerDevelopment Finance
What an offtake agreement does
An offtake agreement is a promise to buy something that has not been made yet. By the end you will know what it changes for a lender, what it costs the seller, and what it leaves unsolved.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What a cost overrun is measured against
An overrun is a comparison, and the figure it is compared with usually goes unstated. By the end you will know which baselines are in use, and why the same project can be on budget and over budget at once.
- ExplainerInfrastructure
What an availability payment is and what it buys
In an availability-payment concession a government pays a private partner a fixed sum for keeping an asset open and working, whether or not anybody uses it. By the end you will know who carries demand risk, what the payment covers in the decades after construction ends, and the one clause that gives the public any leverage.