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Sponsors outside the Netherlands are envious glances at the upcoming project pipeline and international lenders want to build market share. But is there enough appetite to finance upcoming concessions? Thomas Blott gathers public and private players in Amsterdam.
Project lenders have started to turn their attention to the Netherlands, which enjoys a standardised procurement process, low sovereign counterparty risk and a wealth of first-class sponsors. Its pipeline for PPP projects is expected to accelerate over the forthcoming years. Given that the flow of big-ticket financings has started to slow down in France, and the UK government is still struggling to explain the intricacies of its PF2 model, this is welcome news.
But, nearly all projects so far have been procured at the national level, using tried-and-tested structures and long-term bank financing. Dutch sponsors and lenders will increasingly need to cope with decentralisation and the drive towards standardisation may be challenging in emerging sectors like water infrastructure. They will also need to find out which of the institutional debt structures on offer has the most realistic chance of success.
Project Finance gathered ten market participants in Amsterdam to discuss current issues in Dutch PPP. The ten participants were:
Nitesh Mistry, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi-UFJ
Daphne Broerse, Norton Rose
Wouter Hertzberger, Norton Rose
Alistair Higgins, ING Bank
Jeroen In'tveld, Rebel Group
Maarten van der Bent, BAM PPP
Gideon Tilburgs, John Laing Investments
Erik Naafs, VolkerInfra
Laurent Van Cutsem, Besix
Danny Zwerk, Rijkswaterstaat
Project Finance (PF): What do you think explains the increased level of activity in Dutch PPP recently, and will the recent delays to some projects have any effect on the upcoming pipeline?
Danny Zwerk, Rijkswaterstaat (DZ): The Dutch government is very much in favour of PPPs because they deliver value for money. The government uses a multi-annual infrastructure programme, where the budgets are fixed and appointed to projects, and they are also approved by Parliament. The multi-annual approach consists of 32 potential PPPs in the upcoming decade. I don't believe the cuts in central government expenditure will affect the first upcoming PPP tenders very much. We have a pipeline of at least Eu5 billion [$6.8 billion] for the upcoming years.
Nitesh Mistry, BTMU (NM): I think what's noticeable is that there was a period in...