Defoe Partners today announced the establishment of Infrastructure Advisory and Structured Finance Desk for opportunities in Southern Europe, and Western and Sub-Saharan Africa.

22 November 2010

Defoe Partners today announced the establishment of Infrastructure Advisory and Structured Finance Desk for opportunities in Southern Europe, and Western and Sub-Saharan Africa. The Desk will advise to and raise structured capital for public / private backed infrastructure projects, arranging long term and low cost capital solutions such as sale-leaseback and build-to-lease formats. Its clients and partners will be municipalities, government agencies, transportation and road authorities, healthcare operators, energy providers, infrastructure funds, and international investors. 

"Historically municipalities and government agencies in emerging and frontier countries accessed infrastructure project funds from international donor organizations, cash at hand, and to lesser degree from bond financing. Deteriorating economic conditions, voter discontent and other issues have stalled many planned and proposed projects. We can provide flexible and efficient public/private partnership based financial alternatives enabling projects to proceed via credit backed and lease structures on a timely and cost effective basis. We see our footprint in small to mid-size infrastructure projects, such as ports, roadways, waterways or combinations thereof, in emerging and frontier markets." said Mr. Jay C. van Breen, a project finance banker at Defoe Partners.

Capital sources are expected to be world class private institutional investors and leading investment banks. The Infrastructure Desk will leverage Defoe Partners' historical strengths in project and structured capital finance and the current global network of corresponding offices.

"A long-time client of our firm, a foundation which invested hundreds of millions of US Dollars in road and water projects in a single former Soviet Republic, has reached out to us and asked for a strategy formulation to invest in similar projects around the world. There are hundreds of applications where roadways, combined with a water supply, to strategic agricultural areas around worlds would facilitate exponential growth in regional output. In these cases our client will be able to invest in projects generating returns and replenishing capital for future projects. We foresee wider implication around our model when applying it to the agricultural and food sourcing needs of various importing states.", said Mr. Armen A. Grigorian of Defoe Partners. 

The newly formed team of six dedicated professionals, based in New York City and London, is built around the project finance team of Hill van Breen & Co. which became part of Defoe Partners in 2009.

EDITORS NOTES

About Defoe Partners (www.defoepartners.com)

Defoe Partners is a specialist merchant banking firm focused on corporate finance & strategy advice, principal finance, and project & commodity trade finance.  Core competencies are the combination of sophisticated financial and strategic solutions and first-class execution. Strengths are the combination of independence, focus, global presence and background. Company's history and business continuity dates back to its roots first established in 1824. Its project and commodity trade finance desk, formed in 1989, historically, among other activities, served as transaction origination correspondent for leading financial institutions, including Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and CIBC, originating over $4 billion in transactions.

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