Project Funding Criteria

Size: From $25 Million

The floor is set by economics rather than preference. Engaging guarantee providers, securing A-rated counterparties and documenting a structure of this kind carries a broadly fixed cost, whatever the size of the project. Below roughly $25 million that cost consumes the benefit, and a sponsor would be better served by conventional finance even on unattractive terms.

Above it, scale is not a constraint. Larger transactions are routine rather than exceptional, and a requirement in the hundreds of millions does not change the process — only the counterparties involved.

Stage: Development Through Refinancing

• Development capital — where consents, land or early works need funding before a project is bankable in conventional terms
• Construction funding — the phase most lenders will not touch, and the one our structures are built to address
• Completion and stabilisation — bridging the gap between practical completion and the operating record a conventional lender wants to see
• Refinancing — where the existing facility, rather than the project, is the problem: covenants that constrain the business, pricing that no longer reflects the risk, or a maturity arriving at the wrong moment

Sectors

Infrastructure, energy and renewables, real estate development, data centres and technology, shipping, mining and aviation, and emerging markets across all of these.

We do not require your revenue to be contracted before we will look at it. Very few projects arrive that way, and a project that already has everything signed can go to a bank. What we are interested in is whether the earnings can be protected — and putting that protection in place is what L&EIP does before the funding decision is taken, not something you are expected to have arranged in advance.

See how this applies in each sector.

Geography: Worldwide

Including the jurisdictions conventional lenders decline on principle. Country risk is treated as a distinct, priceable item — currency convertibility, expropriation, enforcement — rather than as a blanket premium applied across the entire capital structure. A well-run project with hard-currency revenues should not pay the same premium as a weak one in the same country, and here it does not.

We work directly with emerging market sovereigns as well as with private sponsors. Sovereign and state-sponsored mandates — national infrastructure programmes, utilities, and projects carried by state-owned enterprises or backed by a ministry of finance — are handled on the same basis as any other, with the government's own standing forming part of the structure rather than an obstacle to be worked around.

Our offices in London, Nyon, Road Town and Rabat, with agent networks in Australia, Canada, Dubai, South Africa and the United States, mean most jurisdictions are within reach of someone who has worked there.

What We Need to See

A two-page summary is enough to start. An information memorandum or teaser is ideal. Either way, these are the points that let us give you a real answer rather than a polite one:

• The project — what it is, where it is, and what stage it has reached
• The requirement — total capital cost, how much is already committed, and what remains
• Where the money comes from — what the project sells and to whom, whatever stage that is at. Signed, in negotiation, or open market: all three are workable, and we would rather see it as it stands than dressed up
• The sponsor — who is behind it, relevant track record, and what equity has been or will be deployed
• The history — what has been offered so far and why it did not work. This is the single most useful thing you can tell us
• The timetable — any binding deadlines, expiring consents or committed drawdown dates

How We Work

Three things shape every transaction here, and they are worth stating plainly because they set us apart from most of the market.

• The capital is our own. We fund from our own balance sheet as principal. There is no syndication to assemble and no fundraising undertaken on a sponsor's behalf, which is why a commitment from us is a decision rather than an indication of interest.
• We judge a project by what it becomes once L&EIP has structured it. Not by the sponsor's size, the jurisdiction's reputation, or how neatly it fits a lending template. First-time developers, unfamiliar markets and unconventional projects are ordinary business here. We work with project sponsors, corporates, private equity, funds and family offices, with sovereign governments, ministries of finance and state-owned enterprises across the developing world, and with the introducers and advisers who bring projects to us.
• The architecture comes first. The structure is what makes the funding possible, so it is designed before terms are offered — and arranging that is our job, not yours.

What Happens After You Send It

• Within two business days — we read what you have sent and come back to you
• Automatic structural review — every project offered to us goes straight to L&EIP to be assessed for structure. You submit once; there is no need to approach them separately, and nothing for you to coordinate
• Risk transfer — L&ERM establishes counterparty appetite for the exposures that need moving, and confirms pricing for them
• Indicative terms — a single term sheet covering structuring, risk transfer and capital, rather than three sets of documents to reconcile
• Documentation and drawdown — with every counterparty confirmed before anything is committed

The Terms Behind the Funding

The structures that make these terms possible are designed by Leveraged & Equity Investment Partners, and are set out in full on their site — four approaches covering reduced equity requirements, protection against price collapse, guaranteed earnings floors, and funding the whole project as equity without debt.

Read the four financing structures at landeip.com.