Investor Profiles

5.2  Investors in all the projects examined except the Palestine Solid Waste Management project were local investors, mostly small to medium sized, with a relatively lower level of previous experience in PPPs. In addition, the net worth of some of these investors was relatively low, thus limiting their ability to simultaneously take on several projects in an area. However, where governments have bid out projects simultaneously giving the option to bidders to bid for multiple projects, as in the case of silo projects in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which structured and bid out 10 silo projects simultaneously, and the case of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which is bidding out silo projects at 36 locations, several large firms with higher financial capacity as well as greater experience in the sector and in implementing PPP projects have entered the market. In the case of the MP silos project, Adani Enterprise, a part of the Adani group of companies with investments in various infrastructure sectors as well as storage and logistics, has been the winning bidder in 7 out of 10 projects that were bid out. The observations are similar in the case of multiple PURA projects being bid out by the Government of India. Governments are trying to bundle other projects such as street-lighting projects across different cities in order to attract bigger and more substantial investors as well as to attract debt financing from financiers. It is observed from examining the evaluation criteria for firms in the case of the MP silos project that the authority has adopted a balanced approach in procurement with sector expertise as well as PPP expertise being considered for selection of firms. In the case of the West Bank and Gaza Solid Waste Management Project, a foreign firm with expertise in the area of waste management has been selected; there were no domestic firms that had any substantial experience in this area.