Private Equity Financing in Infrastructure and Real Estate: Impact, Strategies, and Value Addition

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Private Equity (PE) financing in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. In doing so, it analyzes the impact of such investments in the two sectors, evaluates the types of financing strategies, and explores the value created by such investments.  Infrastructure and Real Estate have emerged as a significant asset class for PE investors. In the last three decades, PE firms have invested significant amounts of capital in infrastructure and real estate – sectors which did not feature in their radar before 2000. Between 2000 and 2009, PE firms invested more than USD 200 billion in infrastructure. Real estate sector also witnessed investments of a similar scale as that of infrastructure. Fundraising for infrastructure and real estate was about USD 100 billion and USD 150 billion respectively in 2019, setting new records and reaching all-time highs.  This book examines such PE investments – both at a global level and at an emerging economy level, to identify how PE firms have created an impact with their investments, to provide both ready capital and value-addition to sectors which seem to urgently need both. 

The book is divided into three sections – impact of PE investments, strategies used by PE firms, and value created by such investments. The findings of this research and the corresponding best practices are useful and applicable to students, academicians, researchers, financial institutions, policy makers and law makers, commercial banks and funding agencies, practitioners, the Government, and other parties who are directly or indirectly associated with the development of infrastructure and real estate; and could aid funding agencies, practitioners and policy makers who are directly responsible for creating and developing infrastructure and real estate for their economies.

Josephine Gemson is currently Associate Professor at the School of Management, Economics and Mathematics at King’s University College at Western University, Canada. She received her graduate degree in Finance from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK and her PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India. Her research interests include corporate finance, private equity, and project and infrastructure finance, and she has published her work regularly in noteworthy journals including the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Venture Capital, Utilities Policy, Journal of Private Equity, Journal of Structured Finance, and Public Works Management & Policy. She teaches finance, economics, and accounting, and has experience teaching at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive-MBA levels in various countries.

Thillai Rajan A. is Professor of Finance at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, and a Founder of YNOS Venture Engine. He also heads the Centre for Research on Start-ups and Risk Financing at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. A past Associate at the Mossavar-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, his teaching and research areas include corporate finance, project and infrastructure finance, public private partnerships and venture capital. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and has received international research grants from organizations such as DFID, 3iE, and AusAID. His research has been published regularly in various journals, most notable among them being Utilities Policy, Venture Capital, Energy Policy, Journal of Private Equity, ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Development Policy Review, and The Journal of Development Effectiveness. From 2009 to 2018 he edited the annual India Venture Capital and Private Equity Report series.