An important story that I (and everyone else) missed… The Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships (OTP3) announced earlier this month the selection of its team of consultants to help in negotiations with complex P3 deals. (See the press release.)
Developing a bench of outside consultants is critical as the Commonwealth pursues partnerships to build billions of dollars worth of mega-transportation projects. Private infrastructure-investment firms hire top financial, legal and engineering talent to support their deal making, allowing them to run circles around career public-sector employees not trained in deal financing, risk management, traffic modeling and other arcane issues.
The outside expertise won’t come cheap but it should allow Virginia to cut better deals on multi-billion dollar P3 deals, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of the projects, often lasting 50 years or longer, and obviating hidden risks.
The outside teams include:
- Halcrow, a cH2M Hill company (engineering)
- Infrastructure Management Group (project finance)
- KPMG (infrastructure finance)
- Mercator Advisors (capital markets expertise)
- Public Financial Management (financial advisory services)
- Reynolds, Smith and Hill (infrastructure consulting)
- CDM Smith (transportation consulting)
— JAB
