Infrastructure as an Asset Class - (Wiley Finance) 2nd Edition by Barbara Weber & Mirjam Staub-Bisang & Hans Wilhelm Alfen (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Infrastructure As An Asset Class is the leading infrastructure investment guide, with comprehensive coverage and in-depth expert insight. This new second edition has been fully updated to reflect the current state of the global infrastructure market, its sector and capital requirements, and provides a valuable overview of the knowledge base required to enter the market securely. Step-by-step guidance walks you through individual infrastructure assets, emphasizing project financing structures, risk analysis, instruments to help you understand the mechanics of this complex, but potentially rewarding, market. New chapters explore energy, renewable energy, transmission and sustainability, providing a close analysis of these increasingly lucrative areas.

The risk profile of an asset varies depending on stage, sector and country, but the individual structure is most important in determining the risk/return profile. This book provides clear, detailed explanations and invaluable insight from a leading practitioner to give you a solid understanding of the global infrastructure market.

• Get up to date on the current global infrastructure market
• Investigate individual infrastructure assets step-by-step
• Examine illustrative real-world case studies
• Understand the factors that determine risk/return profiles

Infrastructure continues to be an area of global investment growth, both in the developed world and in emerging markets. Conditions continually change, markets shift and new considerations arise; only the most current reference can supply the right information practitioners need to be successful. Infrastructure As An Asset Class provides clear reference based on the current global infrastructure markets, with in-depth analysis and expert guidance toward effective infrastructure investment.

From the Back Cover

Investors in infrastructure such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, pursue multiple objectives. First and foremost, they seek long-term stable returns to match their long-term liabilities. Second, they look for portfolio diversification. Infrastructure investments, due to their often low correlation with other asset classes, enable investors to improve the overall risk-return profile of portfolios.

Infrastructure as an Asset Class is considered by many as the standard work of infrastructure investing, thanks to its comprehensive guidance for investors, especially during these challenging times. This Second Edition has been extensively updated and expanded. It now also covers the energy sector-from generation to transmission, storage and district energy systems - and sheds light on sustainable investing in infrastructure, an indispensable topic, which any long-term professional investor can no longer ignore. It introduces a strategic approach to benchmarking the financial performance of infrastructure investments and presents various sustainability benchmarking tools used across the industry.

Bringing together the topics of infrastructure investments, project finance and public private partnerships (PPPs), has proven to be crucial for equipping investors with the essentials of theory, fundamentals and practical examples needed to fully master the key aspects of infrastructure investing. Mirjam Staub-Bisang joins the powerhouse team of lead author Barbara Weber and Hans Wilhelm Alfen to bring sustainability knowledge and insight to this new edition's heightened focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. This single-source guide for newcomers and experienced investors alike covers all aspects from basic fundamentals to highly specific infrastructure investment-related questions such as: How to define infrastructure, how to classify the ownership structures and business models in various industry sectors; what the main characteristics, sources of revenue and value chain elements, competition and regulation and investment opportunities in the various infrastructure sectors are; and how the broad spectrum of risks can be systematically analysed, evaluated and mitigated through adequate structuring of transactions. It also explains in detail how project finance works both in a traditional and in a PPP context.

This updated edition includes the latest developments on the subjects covered, which makes it an extremely relevant source of guidance for infrastructure investors in both industrial and emerging market countries, and enables them to:

• Know about relevant developments in current infrastructure markets
• Assess individual infrastructure assets step by step for their suitability within an investment strategy, including sustainability aspects
• Understand all factors determining risk-return profiles of infrastructure assets, including ESG and, in particular, climate change risk and how to mitigate such risks
• Learn from illustrative real-world case studies on infrastructure assets across countries

Even experienced infrastructure investors who have read the first edition will find this revised standard work Infrastructure as an Asset Class, Second Edition, very useful as it supports them in their tasks of identifying and assessing suitable investment opportunities and making well-informed investment decisions.

About the Author

BARBARA WEBER is founding partner of B Capital Partners AG in Zurich, an investment advisory firm focused on institutional private equity portfolios and specialising in infrastructure and clean energy.

MIRJAM STAUB-BISANG is CEO of Independent Capital Group AG in Zurich, an asset management and real estate investment company focused on sustainable investing across asset classes.

HANS WILHELM ALFEN is chair of construction economics at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany and general manager and founder of Alfen Consult GmbH, Weimar.