On day 1, Paris based partner Victoria Westcott will moderate a panel entitled ‘The response of project finance lenders and sponsors to a market characterized by a slow greenfield pipeline and abundant disruptors’. This panel will focus on how banks and sponsors are compensating for a lack of primary deal flow in the transport space; greenfield inertia; the move to new European jurisdictions; the entrance of institutional investors to the lending space and the concern of disruptive transport technology when considering financing new assets.
On day 2, Dubai based partner Simon Harvey will moderate a panel entitled ‘Ask the market … The Middle East Assessment’. This session will focus on the different perspectives of a variety of players active or interested in deploying capital in energy and infrastructure in the Middle East. This will be followed by a panel session moderated by London partner Panos Katsambas entitled ‘The global M&A outlook: With high levels of liquidity and limited assets available, how are companies establishing themselves in a highly competitive secondary market?’ This session will focus on the high levels of secondary market activity in Europe; recalibration of return expectations; the exploration of investors given lower returns in Europe; upcoming M&A pipelines globally and will ask ‘what are the implications of the overall competitive environment, and how sustainable is the environment?’
On day 3, Singapore based partner Bree Miechel will moderate a panel which will ask ‘To what extent is there a noticeable shift in Asian markets in welcoming foreign investment, and how will impact deal flow?’ This panel will focus on the greatest opportunities for investment in Asia; returns on PPAs in Asia; securing long term lending; and will ask is there a need to increase trust between public and private sector to promote PPPs in Asia and build sustainable project pipelines?
Reed Smith attendees included Richard Ceeney, Shourav Lahiri, Guilain Hippolyte, Ildar Bagautdinov, and Laura Riddeck.
