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Earlier studies on risk evaluation in private finance initiative and public private partnerships (PFI/PPP) projects have focussed more on quantitative approaches despite increasing call for contextual understanding of the bankability of risks. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perspectives of UK PFI financiers’ regarding the bankability of four critical risks (construction and completion risk, operations, supply and offtake risk) in PPP projects.

Multiple case study strategy was adopted to investigate the phenomenon within real-life context of PFI/PPP projects in UK. Using purposive sampling approach, the study examined school and road PFI/PPP projects through interviews, documentations and focus group discussions.

Results from the study unravelled 36 suitable bankability criteria and some mitigation strategies for evaluating the four critical risks in PFI/PPP during due diligence appraisal. Further evidences from the study also show that, financiers’ bankability criteria, when paired along with corresponding risks and mitigation strategies within with a single framework, provides a quick and effective view of bankability of risks in PFI/PPP funding application.

In order to ensure generalisability of findings, only projects with similar nature were selected from just two sectors of the UK economy (road and education sectors). The context of the study is also based on UK’s PFI/PPP and Construction Industry, as such, other geographical regions in Europe and beyond have not been contextualised in this study. Due to the significance of finance in PFI/PPP contracts, only the perspective of project financiers have been explored in this study.

This study provides a less complicated but useful understanding of how risks in PFI/PPP projects may be packaged in a bankable manner to secure the confidence of project financiers. By presenting a qualitative framework, the study addresses concerns of over quantification of risk analysis in PFI/PPP appraisals and provides a relatable approach useful for non-finance oriented PPP practitioners.

This study addresses the social concerns of too much complexity and ambiguity in PFI/PPP structuring especially regarding factors that could make a project acceptable to lenders.

The study proposes a “Bankability and Risk Qualitative Framework”, which presents bankability information on critical risks in clear manner and represents critical parameters for winning financiers’ funding approvals for PFI/PPP projects.

Construction projects are risky. However, the characteristics of the risk highly depend on the type of procurement being adopted for managing the project. A build‐operate‐transfer (BOT) project is recognized as one of the most risky project schemes. There are instances of project failure where a BOT scheme was employed. Ineffective rts are increasingly being managed using various risk management tools and techniques. However, application of those tools depends on the nature of the project, organization's policy, project management strategy, risk attitude of the project team members, and availability of the resources. Understanding of the contents and contexts of BOT projects, together with a thorough understanding of risk management tools and techniques, helps select processes of risk management for effective project implementation in a BOT scheme. This paper studies application of risk management tools and techniques in BOT projects through reviews of relevant literatures and develops a model for selecting risk management process for BOT projects. The application to BOT projects is considered from the viewpoints of the major project participants. Discussion is also made with regard to political risks. This study would contribute to the establishment of a framework for systematic risk management in BOT projects.

This paper aims to propose that the socio-technical perspective is under-represented when appraising the adoption potential of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in late-industrialising countries and that this results in under-adoption. It also aims to identify a methodological approach that allows the socio-technical perspective to be integrated into management decision-making, alongside the more typical economic appraisal methodology.

A case study and novel mixed-methodology approach is used, which applies the diffusion of innovations framework, innovation system (IS) framework and system dynamics modelling (SDM) alongside traditional economic modelling and appraisal techniques. This approach is used to assess the adoption potential of solar photovoltaic (PV) and diesel water pumping systems in the wildlife conservation sector and surrounding rural communities in Kenya. The case study approach tests the merits of the mixed-methodology approach.

The life-cycle costs of solar PV water pumping systems are lower in nearly all financing and utilisation scenarios; offer additional social, technical and environmental benefits; and the conditions exist for greater adoption. The use of an integrated diffusion of innovations and IS framework generates significant qualitative data that can support management decision-making. The use of SDM techniques aid conceptualisation of the community economic, water and institutional systems into which water pumps may be diffused and provide a starting point for formal SDM simulation. The results suggest that these techniques capture the socio-technical perspective well and, when used alongside traditional project appraisal approaches, produce more complete information with which to support management decision-making.

This mixed-methodology approach could be used by practitioners to increase the diffusion and adoption of RETs in more complex contexts in late-industrialising countries. The emergent theory built through the case-study approach should be tested further to assess the merits of applying these techniques to support RET management decision-making in other contexts and more broadly.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a well-performing company can turn into a loss-making company on account of adverse industry cycle and poor management of risks in the business. The importance of factors like optimal level of leveraging, the ability of the management to deal with external and internal risks, and importance of corporate governance in the process of credit appraisal is understood from this case.

The case relates to the credit appraisal by the banks of a prominent steel company in India. The company, Bhushan Steel Limited, was doing very well. The banks lent aggressively to the company, based on their credit appraisal. However, the company soon turned insolvent on account of poor assessment of risks and deteriorating external factors. While this case may be analysed and studied through the eyes of both the Management and the lenders, the focus is currently on the latter. In a real-world scenario, the challenge for the lender is to sieve through the financial as well as non-financial data and make a valid conclusion on the level of credit worthiness of the borrowing company. This includes the topics of operational efficiency and synergies, commodity price cycles, external credit ratings, operating and financial leverage, regulatory risks and corporate governance.

Post graduate business management programmes – Finance specialisation.

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CSS 1: Accounting and Finance

Adani Power Limited (A) is the first case in a series of cases on the attempts by the firm to wriggle out of negative consequences of long-term fixed price power purchase agreements it had entered into. The firm wanted to terminate the agreement on the ground that its bid was based on coal allocation by another Government owned entity. This case describes as to how the firm was unable to get the contract terminated due to regulatory interventions. The case also raises public policy issues including the robustness of guidelines for procurement of power.

This case is a sequel to the “IndiGrid: Creating India's First Power Transmission InvIT (A)” case. It describes the deal that would replace the trust's original sponsor, Sterlite Power, with a new set of KKR-led financial investors. It provides an opportunity to discuss the consequences of this change on the new investment manager's outlook for management and future acquisitions. The new investment manager, freed from the limiting interest of the original sponsor, had to search for investment opportunities from the perspective of incoming financial investors, which included the new sponsor. It also provides an opportunity to evaluate the trade-offs in investing in operational utility-scale renewable energy assets by the IndiGrid, which had so far only acquired operational transmission assets in its portfolio.

This paper explores the emerging articulations between microfinance and livestock production cycles among Mongolian pastoralists in contexts plagued by disaster and commodity market fluctuations. Ethnographic investigations of household production and vulnerability in two rural districts of eastern and western Mongolia demonstrates that both poor and wealthy households have become ensnared in a cashmere-debt cycle but that the bifurcation of livestock asset trajectories between large and small herds has also fostered diverse financial and herd management strategies that further exacerbate existing inequalities.

Concession contracts provide a mechanism for transferring the traditional public sector client roles of market research, project appraisal, project financing, operation and maintenance, and revenue generation associated with power station projects to the private sector organizations, formerly only responsible for turnkey design and construction. The recent research work undertaken in the Project Management Group, UMIST, has developed and validated a mechanism for the rapid appraisal of concession contracts. A case study example is presented to illustrate the significant features of the procurement of power projects using concession contracts.

Government support plays an important part in risk‐return trade‐off of participants in privately financed infrastructure projects. Depending on the level of government support, risk‐return trade‐off of the private sponsor varies from project to project. Case studies on two of China's build‐operate‐transfer (BOT) power projects that were developed at different time periods illustrate that government support has a significant effect on both risk and return of the private sponsor. It is hoped that such understanding would help the private sponsor strike a desirable risk‐return trade‐off in structuring a BOT deal.