Cintra participated in the InvITs & Infrastructure conference at the Four Seasons hotel in Mumbai (India) on 13 July.
The conference was organized by Resolut Partners and PwC India with the support and collaboration of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA) and Avener Capital. The event was inaugurated by Ashwani Bhatia, Whole-Time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and was attended by representatives of the main domestic and international investors, as well as the country’s leading banks, rating agencies, advisors and other actors in the infrastructure sector.
Carlos Ugarte, Global Head of Corporate & Business Development at Cintra, was a keynote speaker. Addressing the theme “Global Innovations in Road Development”, Carlos discussed the case study of the LBJ Express project in Texas as an example of the advantages for public administrations of using vertically integrated developers, i.e. companies capable of managing all phases of a project’s life cycle, from design and financing through construction to operation and maintenance.
Carlos also participated in a panel on the situation of the highway concession sector in India along with Vivendra Mhaiskar, Chairman of IRB; Debapratin Hajara, Senior Principal at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan); and Sumit Sen, Partner at Actis. The panel debated the various forms of public-private partnership, among other issues. Cintra and IRB emphasized their shared enthusiasm for the new BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) projects to be tendered with construction and traffic risk as these risks are best transferred to the private sector. In his speech, Carlos Ugarte pointed out that
“In India there is room for all types of public-private partnerships, but the models with construction and traffic risk are undoubtedly the ones that best solve the government’s problems, since they also release public funds for other projects, such as improving and investing in public transportation”.
