Will the UK Infra Bank ‘crowd in’ private capital?

The long-awaited details of how the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) will work in practice were finally revealed in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget on 3 March. Beyond announcing the location of the bank will be in Leeds – not Darlington, alongside the proposed Treasury campus – there was clear intent for the UKIB to “crowd in capital”, provide “additionality” and “bridge the gap in the market”.

The positive tone will be welcomed by the industry, including institutional investors. But we must quickly move beyond rhetoric toward meaningful engagement on how the UKIB can help unblock latent private capital to deliver the government’s objectives for infrastructure investment.

The UKIB is expected to play a key part in meeting two critical objectives for the government: achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and levelling-up growth and opportunities across the country through regional investment.

It will support private infrastructure projects in sectors such as clean energy, transport, digital, water and waste. Carbon capture usage and storage is explicitly mentioned, which aligns with the current work within the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to develop commercial models for the sector. This provides a clear message of political support.

UKIB will develop a mix of financial tools to achieve its objectives, including equity, loans and state guarantees. It will also provide advisory support to sponsors and local authorities, although it is not clear whether this service will be provided on commercial terms.

The bank will launch in the spring with a financial capacity of £22 billion ($30.4 billion; €25.6 billion). This includes £12 billion in capital – £5 billion of equity from the government and up to £7 billion of debt from the market, which will count towards public sector borrowing – and £10 billion in government guarantees.

Of the £12 billion in capital, the Treasury has already stated £4 billion should be set aside for local authority lending, with the remaining £8 billion allocated to private sector projects. Public sector lending will be available from the summer at a pre-defined rate of gilts plus 60 basis points. At these rates, one would assume the bank is not seeking to crowd in private investment on similar terms – in effect, the UKIB will take the role of the current Public Works Loan Board.

The creation of the UKIB stems from concerns initially raised by the National Infrastructure Commission concerning the loss of the European Investment Bank from the UK infrastructure investment market. It is critical to note that the power of the EIB was not primarily as a source of liquidity, but it provided below-market pricing for deals given its unique position of being able to act outside of state aid constraints.

One of the key statements in the policy design document relates to project pricing and the need to “reflect the level of risk involved in the investment and ensure compliance with the domestic subsidy control rules and the UK’s international obligations”. More detail will be eagerly awaited. Experience from the Green Investment Bank showed European State Aid rules were a constraint on activity for a national state bank. It is also worth noting the previous experience of incubating a Green Investment Bank for the private sector to subsequently acquire will not be repeated. The document states a policy to create a bank that will be a “enduring feature of our institutional landscape”.

Early-stage capital needed

The UKIB will offer four financial products alongside advice: senior debt, hybrid products such as mezzanine loans or first-loss credit products, guarantees and equity. We know little about the potential balance of commitments across these products. The only detail on equity, for example, is for it to address “construction risk or to assist in crowding in other investors”.

One message we have consistently delivered to the government is that the main area of market failure is in early-stage development of new technologies or business models. The policy document does not provide direct comfort that early-stage equity capital that is explicitly designed to be recycled is within its remit.

Hopefully, assurances on this will follow soon. UKIB should look to provide additional support using early-stage development capital to ‘pump prime’ key policy priorities in new technologies. The objective would be to use this capital to develop new technologies or assets, which can be recycled at an early stage when the project can ‘crowd in’ capital from private sources.

UKIB is being positioned as a public sector bank, not an infrastructure fund. This implies the government sees a greater gap in debt than equity, which is not a feature readily observed in the UK market today. The focus of the bank will ultimately be heavily influenced by the leadership and staffing in terms of the level of debt or equity investment experience.

Can UKIB address the market failure?

The UK infrastructure debt market is awash with liquidity. Commercial banks, insurers and pension schemes all have strong appetite for infrastructure debt and the level of liquidity would appear to be even greater than pre-covid, making the market very attractive for equity sponsors.

Many investors, including Aviva Investors, are concerned about the lack of investment opportunities. This is especially acute for institutional insurance investors subject to Solvency II requirements. In the absence of significant changes to Matching Adjustment requirements, a large volume of potential capital well aligned to the long-term nature of net zero-related infrastructure will not be available. It is, therefore, critical to understand whether and how the UKIB can help to mobilise this capital.

Right now, there are few examples of commercially viable new assets that are unable to attract private sector capital. Assets only struggle to raise capital for clear reasons associated with the underlying commercial risk, although this position may change over time as the UK accelerates new technologies and policies to support the pathway to net zero.

UKIB will need to work carefully through each sub-sector to understand the precise financing challenges and determine its risk appetite for new technologies or commercial models. There are many examples of the challenges ahead: the appetite for long-term subsidy-free renewable projects; early-stage technologies in the waste-to-sustainable-aviation-fuel sector; early-stage projects relating to the hydrogen economy; and the development of small modular nuclear reactors.

Crowding-in private capital for such projects will not be straightforward and require carefully designed financial structuring. The government will also need to determine how it seeks to balance the use of UKIB with other policy levers to make new sectors financeable.

A good example is in carbon capture usage and storage where Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy is currently designing a commercial framework involving the adaptation of the successful contract-for-difference and regulated asset base models, which can help transform a new sector into one that is readily investable by the private sector.

In the meantime, the bank will commence operations in an interim form this spring, followed by finalisation of its organisational design. In the policy design report, there was a noticeable emphasis on UKIB building relationships and the development of business tools and mechanisms to support market engagement.

Again, such an approach would be welcomed by the industry. Only by providing an effective, open and transparent conduit to the financing and investment market will UKIB be able to deliver on its stated objectives to work alongside the private sector and unleash the billions of capital waiting to be deployed.

Darryl Murphy is managing director, infrastructure at Aviva Investors. The full version of this article is available on Aviva’s website.