May 2009 Issue

Like students after an exam, we are all conducting a post mortem on the current crisis before the results are known. But as the end results might not be clear for another 5-10 years, at least, it is inevitable (and desirable) that we try to work out the impact of the current financial meltdown. As […]

Meridiam, a European infrastructure fund, has been quietly buying up projects in North America. Cezary Podkul explores why it could suddenly explode into view as a big player

First Reserve’s $9bn close for its 12th energy fund suggests investors are keeping their wallets open to energy – although not quite as open as they used to be

Renewable energy is already worth over $150 billion a year to private financiers, and could grow four times as big as countries try to slash carbon emissions. Matilda Battersby reports

How hard will problems at 3i Group hit its 33% subsidiary 3i Infrastructure, asks Paul Jarvis

The private equity secondaries market is boiling hot. Cezary Podkul asks why that isn’t spilling overinto infrastructure

Cezary Podkul takes a look at CenterPoint’s historic bid for the Port of Virginia, which could unlock a whole new market for infra investors

At the moment, private investment is largely limited to heavy infrastructure such as roads and ports. But lack of cash might force governments to accelerate the pace of social infrastructure development, which looks increasingly impossible without outside cash. Paul Jarvis reports

The political battle over privately funded infrastructure is far from over in America

Governments are quietly accepting that private money can’t plug East Asia’s burgeoning infra gap

Banks have come running to Britain’s M25 motorway project after the government offered to fund it itself

Some Macquarie-managed listed entities are up for sale, but others seem determined to remain listed

The dearth of new funding threatens market development

Chicago has been forced to shelve plans to lease Midway Airport, but this reflects problems in the financial markets rather than with public private partnerships

London’s G20 summit failed to produce the promised infrastructure binge, and now there are grumbles that the various national investment plans aren’t leading to much new work either. By Michael Kapoor

It always sounded just a bit too good to be true. Debt markets are a mess, so Citi said it would simply fund its $2.5 billion Midway airport deal with equity. Of course that made financial sense, it said, and it could always refinance later on. Now the deal has collapsed because Citi couldn’t raise […]

Peek in room 206 of the Indiana Statehouse. A sign on the large brown door informs you that you’ve entered the governor’s office. Inside, you’re immediately greeted by a portrait of Joe Kernan, the man Mitchell Daniels battled for the job in 2004, when he crisscrossed the state in a motorhome with an appropriately homely […]

It was all so exciting in the run up to the G20 London summit in April. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, was pushing countries to blow their budgets and spend their way out of trouble, backed up by the Americans. It all promised a hefty dose of infrastructure investment around the world, much of it […]

In 1626, Dutch settlers supposedly exchanged Native Americans a pile of beads for a deed to Manhattan. 383 years later, Cezary Podkul sat down with Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana, to find out how the $3.8 billion lease of his state’s toll road compared with that original big deal

The current financial crisis will lead to permanent and deep change in infrastructure investment, says Challenger’s Andrew Jones