Project, ECA & Structured Finance MENA 2020 - Virtual Conference

Closing transactions in 2020: How are governments, off-takers, operators and developers re-thinking their approach to financing?

• Unlocking additional capital: How are developers diversifying and adjusting their funding strategies in response to ongoing market volatility?
• What impact have low rates had on sovereign, off-taker and developer’s decision processes when assessing future financing structures?
• Success stories from 2020: Which projects have reached financial close, and what were the key components to their success?
• Resilience or revaluation: Have MENA’s project ratings held up in 2020? How can developers maintain ratings through the current volatility?

Balancing ESG with structure and liquidity: Is there a liquidity and/or price advantage for green and sustainable debt?

• Pricing or PR: Does green, social and sustainable finance offer a pricing advantage? How much extra cost is involved in ESG-linked financing options?
• How are renewables and social infrastructure projects optimising synergy with ESG criteria? What instruments can they use to tap ESG-focused finance?
• Transition financing: What are the capital and economic reasons for dirty industry borrowers to incorporate ESG into their financing strategy?
• Record bond issuances in 2020 but Green Debt is down 20% YTD: Is sustainable finance losing steam because of the pandemic?

Sponsors, banks or capital markets: Where will project risk be (re)allocated post-COVID19?

• Which sponsors and financing partners have greatest appetite for project risk?
• What are the financing options for sponsors looking to develop projects today?
• What guarantees do different parties want?
  • What are the risk mitigation mechanisms available?
• Can they be inserted into contracts that have not yet reached financial close?
• What are the premiums on project insurance?
• How is a second wave of COVID being incorporated into covenants now?
• What are DFIs, IFIs and ECAs doing to de-risk projects?

Project and export finance: How is the mandate of ECAs evolving with COVID-19?

• How are ECAs adapting their strategies to trade wars, re-regionalisation of supply chains and other global trends?
• Is the mandate for ECAs expanding? How much of a transaction must be tied to national interest?
• What does the new relationship between commercial lenders and ECA look like? How will risk be shared?
• ECAs and ESG: What are ECAs mandates for ESG? Can agencies lend to green and sustainable projects even where there is no exporter link?
• What is the role for emerging regional ECAs in the shifting landscape of lenders?

The long-term economic impact of COVID-19 and its impact on government spending on infrastructure

• GDP growth slowdown and longer-term impacts on the make-up of the GCC economies
• Re-regionalising of global supply chains or boom in globalisation through digitalisation? How does each scenario impact GCC economies and their need for infrastructure?
• Infrastructure in the new world order: Are changes to the economic landscape of the GCC likely to impact the type of infrastructure needed?
• Unconventional monetary and fiscal policy in 2020: How will this impact government sponsorship of infrastructure development in 2021 and 2022?

Global oil price outlook: What will the post-COVID equilibrium price be?

• Global demand versus supply: How much of the disruption is down to COVID-19 and how much is a longer term shift?
• Elections, trade, and oil: How are geopolitics likely to impact the price of oil in 2021?
• Transition and transformation: Trends in oil and gas asset valuations and the impact of ESG on the petroleum industry
• Price outlook for 2021: Where will oil price stabilise?

What is driving institutional investors’ burgeoning demand for infrastructure assets?

• What is driving institutional investors appetite for global infrastructure? Has the pandemic impacted the way investors are seeking to buy into regulated assets?
• What are the criteria for pension funds and global private equity houses to make infrastructure investments, in MENA vs other EMs?
• Pension fund, asset manager, private equity: How to attract and structure deals for MENA top international institutional investors
• Project and construction risk: How can institutional investors get comfortable with Emerging markets’ greenfield projects?

How to structure social infrastructure projects to attract public and private sector money into deals

• What are the upcoming social infrastructure projects? What are the opportunities for private sector participation?
• Success of the PPP model in the utilities sector: What best practice can be applied to social infrastructure projects?
• What do procurers need to do to streamline and successfully execute PPP frameworks?
• What are the challenges for international investors assessing regional projects away from the power and water sector?
• What is an agreeable and efficient allocation of risk between private and public investors?

Developing projects amidst ratings downgrades and falling oil price: How to make projects bankable in oil-reliant economies

• What are the opportunities for project investors in Bahrain and Oman?
• Countering COVID, ratings downgrades and lower oil price: How can sponsors and developers mitigate risk to successfully develop projects?
• PPPs in Oman & Bahrain: How are projects going to be developed, delivered, and financed?
• Structuring deals: What are the financing options? What guarantees are lenders and investors after? How explicit do government guarantees need to be?

How to successfully structure deals for sponsors and private investors to develop projects in North and Sub-Saharan Africa

• Demand and supply: How big is the pipeline of projects across Africa? How much financing is required? What is the appetite of investors for African projects?
• What size and scale does a project need to have to attract project financing? Where are the best opportunities found?
• Adapting African project finance for international project developers? Or transferring MENA project finance structures to develop African projects?
• Can GCC developers get comfortable with local PF structures in Africa?
• Political risk – does it continue to be the biggest source of risk to project financing in Africa? How do sponsors and developers get comfortable with it?
• What are the different risk appetites and policy pressures of ECAs, DFIs and commercial lenders? How can PRI cover mitigate these risks?