Archives

UK Water Commission Report: Where Regulation Went Awry

The United Kingdom’s privatized water industry is in a shambles. On the bright side, its government created a commission to sort out why. That Independent Water Commission led by Sir Jon Cunliffe completed its inquiry this summer, and this is the third of a series of articles diving into its 464-page report and dozens of […]

Crunch Financing Deadline for Brightline West in November

Brightline West, the company developing a 218-mile high-speed rail line between Rancho Cucamonga, California and Las Vegas, is facing a crunch financing deadline in November on a $2.5 billion Private Activity Bond (PAB) issuance from earlier this year. The project bonds included a 270-day deadline to either complete the project’s capital structure or face a […]

Exploring Interactions Among PPP Institutional Variables Along Market Maturity Levels

Study by John Salazar and Petr Matous It is widely recognised that institutional quality is an important determinant of the success of PPPs.  Institutions including political, legal and public sector environments are crucial to attracting private investment and ensuring PPPs are legitimately governed. This paper conducts an in-depth study of the institutions that influence PPP […]

Advance Notice for Penn Station Redeveloper Procurement

The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Amtrak are wasting very little time moving forward with a P3 procurement to redevelop Penn Station in New York. The agency has noticed that it intends to publish a solicitation for a master developer for the project by the end of this year, and that it will be engaging […]

Municipal Retirees for Water Privatization in Chester, Pennsylvania

An organization representing some retired municipal employees filed suit against the state-appointed receiver for Chester, Pennsylvania over the city’s planned sale of the Chester Water Authority (CWA) earlier this summer. Their complaint isn’t what you’d expect. Rather than attempting to block a concession to a private partner, the retirees are trying to force one. The […]

Opening the U.S. Market for Airport P3 Leases

P3-focused global companies have long been frustrated that there seems to be no U.S. market for airport privatization. Worldwide, the last three decades have seen numerous large and medium-size airports either sold or P3-leased. Airports Council International (ACI) keeps a database which shows that in Europe 75% of passengers use privatized airports. In Latin America […]

CA High‐Speed Rail Receives State Funding Bill, Will Solicit Investors

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) may soon be able to solicit private investors to deliver parts of the Bakersfield-to-Merced initial operating segment. Just over a month after receiving input from potential investors, new legislation passed in early September will stabilize and prioritize the Authority’s cap-and-trade funding at $1 billion per year. CHSRA CEO Ian […]

UK Water Report: Did Investor Dividends Sully the Rivers?

The final report of the UK’s Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, may not be in time to save Thames Water from a messy temporarily renationalization. The water company is going to decide in a month whether to appeal its current regulatory program to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), based on negotiations […]

Tennessee I‐24 Choice Lanes Shortlist Published

The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) has finally published an official shortlist of bidders for the I-24 Choice Lanes project. The proposed project will add two express lanes in each direction along a 26-mile stretch of I-24 southeast of Nashville. The project is the first of Governor Bill Lee’s Choice Lane initiative, which could eventually […]

Governance and Renegotiation in Public-Private Partnerships During Crises: An Examination of the Resulting Tensions in a Private Partner Consortium

Original study by Marta Almeida, Anne Stafford, Robert Scapens As PPPs are long-term contracts, they are often characterized by project complexity and uncertainty that may be because of an exogenous event such as the global financial crisis (GFC) or the pandemic.  PPPs, therefore, usually have governance arrangements in place to regulate uncertainty during crises. This […]