So, what drives authorities and agencies to consider a public private partnership? Well, I've listed here a number of reasons or a number of drivers. Certainly, the funding is a challenge. While debt is cheap right now, and there is a argument right now in Washington about, well, if debt is cheap, then why don't we go out and get more of it? Apply it toward infrastructure to create jobs and economy and perhaps in a measured, calculated, value-for-money beneficial way, that might work. But you are going further into debt, and future generations are going to be required to pay that back. Typically, when an agency or an authority runs up against their capital debt cap, they look to see if they can stretch the existing dollars in P3, is one way to do that. Certainly, you have a demand for improved infrastructure, both fixing the existing infrastructure that we have and sort of adding further infrastructure where it's required. Congestion is very, very high, traffic, quality of life and time of travel are up. Congestion at the airports, you have consent degrees for wastewater facilities. There are a number of challenges, for sure, and you have the grid, the grid, the grid needs to be improved. A P3 can be applicable there, and worthy of consideration to help try and tackle that huge infrastructure deficit that everyone talks about. Certainly, P3s help to spur projects from the drawing board to the field to be constructed and therein comes the economic benefits. Of course, job creation is a big one. Right now where projects are being built on a P3 basis, they generate hundreds of construction jobs and support jobs that last quite a long time. They're not just one-offs. Typically, a P3 project takes three to seven years to construct, so you're creating this multi-billion dollar enterprise through the P3 that really has a positive effect on the local and regional economy. Most of the subs are local or regional, a lot of the sourcing is local and regional. So, you see economic growth come from these projects being accelerated into the market. P3s are also a great vehicle for the public client to drive initiatives that are important to the community. Certainly health and safety and green. Certainly making the project more appropriate for the neighborhood and where it's built. To capture its localness or its regionalness. To make it a special asset that people are proud to use. Of course they are stakeholders, they are customers and they deserve high quality. And a P3 is a way to really drive innovation and creative thinking, best practices, technology. And again, I think when you look at the company where I work, ACOM, it is a leader in In those areas. It's very effective in design, in engineering, in architectural realms, certainly in construction. We have capacity to put money in through equity and make an investment but we also have an operations and maintenance profile and we build these assets to last. And that's what our motto is as a company. And I think you have a lot of those kinds of companies competing in the space and public clients can take advantage of all of that and apply it so that the structure isn't just built for today but it's built to last for the long term. And that's where real true value comes in. Having to interrupt operations on a constant basis to maintain and a lot of the infrastructures 50, 60 years old, 70 years old in the US Most of the traffic problems are caused by having to constantly maintain those aged assets which need to be upgraded in a big way. The risk chancer obviously is key in a public private partnership. In a traditional project, the authority, or the state, or the agency takes on almost all the risk, and I'll show you a couple of charts in a moment, but why a client would want to go for P3 is because they recognize that maybe we're not so good at doing the design and construction part, and maybe we should let the private sector take that on. So we'll transfer the risk over and maybe we're not able to do the long term operations remaining and get the funding required. So let's ask for the private sector to deliver that as well. So there inlies the genesis of what Would drive a client to pursue a P3. You also want to leave her and optimize whatever available public funds there are. So again, that whole stretching of available dollars. By livering in the private equity. Perhaps private debt or public debt, loans from the federal government, and package it together to deliver a very complex, large-scale project that otherwise would sit vacant or idle. For a decade until the amount of money was raised that was needed to actually execute the project. You're kind of buying the project today in today's dollars and completing it much more quickly and the benefits as a community and the government out of that, including receipts for taxes, property taxes, sales tax and other benefits that come along. There's a lot more support we see in the market for user based fees or tolls. Communities are realizing, that well if we want to get out of traffic or if we want to improve water quality or if we want to have a better experience at the airport We're willing to carry our fair share of the cost. And, that's encouraging because tools are paid by the people who are gaining direct benefit from the asset they're using and its typically local traffic or its traffic that supports The economy, so there's a buy-in now from the public that I'd like to keep my money local, my tax monies local, my toll dollars local, and that sort of has an investment for the users. To say, listen we're benefiting from the asset. We're willing to pay slightly more to utilize that because we're guaranteed a time of travel. We're guaranteed to have quality service, we're guaranteed to safety and all the other things that are important to the community. So there is a growing acceptance that tolling may be part of the future because Rasing tax dollars to pay for all the infrastructure that's required is nearly impossible. So the value of P3s. Why would a state look at or a government look at P3s? Well certainly it's access to funding it's delivery of large objects as I mentioned earlier, 500 million and above in U.S dollars is the typical You know, benchmark for a P3 of the case studies that I'll show you. There are several in a $2 billion dollar range as an example. But the idea is that projects are turnkey which means they are guaranteed to be delivered as required from the beginning. Or it comes at the penalty and punishment, if you will, of the private partners. It has to be performance-based, and th is is another big value driver for P3s, that you just can't build the asset and abandon it, or not take care of it. It doesn't sit there and be utilized heavily and left to others to tend to. To the private partner, the private investor and its partners. Take responsibility for that and then earn their return based on their performance. And you see this embracing of P3 to accelerate, to guarantee, to give certainty to The governmental or authority or agency partners that when they say this project will cost X and it will be delivered on Y and it will cost as much to maintain, well-taken by the private sector with strict regime of monetarization over the private partner, that really generates I think a lot of value for the Client who can then direct precious tax dollars to improving the service delivery of that agency. And I think our country in particular will spend a lot of time and effort on the bricks and mortar, and steel, and concrete, but perhaps less time on the quality of service that we deliver to our citizens and tax payers, and- By forming a Public Private Partnership to deliver the asset that allows you to see actually focus some of it's formation. Which is to served the tax payers, and the public, and the citizens in the most efficient and effective way. The sectors that are active in Public Private Partnerships around the world, includes what's on the wheel here Here, and you can see there are some main sectors here of course. There's leisure, social, transportation, water, and energy. And within those broader sectors are areas of specialization where we've seen P3s applied. And I would tell you that in the US, it's largely transportation, social and water energy is emerging, and leisure is typically done private private. However, this just gives you a sense of the breadth and depth of How P3s can be applied, not only in the US market but elsewhere, and applied successfully. And if you look, an emerging sector in both Canada and the US is the light rail sector where you have authorities, typically, looking to build a light rail. Minds, to connect communities to cities, to build smart cities if you will and you see more light rail P3's now merging in the market. There has been two light rail P3's in United States. A third project is emerging, Canada has done several. And I think this is a trend that you will see, I mentioned earlier the waste water. Sector is emerging. And we see that as a great possibility because so many communities have to upgrade their waste water treatment plants, but just don't have the ability to raise user fees or other taxes, or go further into debt to make their required upgrades, technology wise. Infrastructure wise. So that scenario that we see very promising is the waterways water sector. I think aviation, all of us who used the airports around the US, while there are some fantastic facilities, many others are dated. They can't accommodate larger planes, they can't accommodate the volume of the airline industry that we all experience everyday when we travel Airlines are demanding premium space, as are their customers. And the capacity of an airport is limited, so those are some of the drivers that you see out there to develop the aviation sector in P3. And then, of course, in the energy sector, the alternate energy sector is, I think, also one that will emerge. Now again, many of those projects may be private-to-private, a land owner and And a systems provider along with equity construction but there will be, I believe state in local P3 projects that will emerge in the energy sector. This is what a typical P3 structure would look like. And again, they have variations depending on the complexity of the projects but this is what I considered to be the basis for a P3 structure organization and And it's pretty standard across this US market. Which you have that top of course as always the government entity as I mention typically the author and authority of some kind. That enters into concision agreement with the special purpose company or special purpose vehicle form specifically for that dedicated project And that special purpose company consists of lenders and equity investors or shareholders. And at the end of the line, of course, are the customers and users who are ultimately The target of the P3 to improve the lives of citizens, of tax payers, of customers, through the P3. And typically those are the ones paying either the user fee or the tolls. Now in an availability structure the government will pay based on the performance of the asset post construction. And then below the special purpose company at the service of the special purpose company is the design build joint venture and the operations and maintenance provider. So if you take in the road sector you would have civil contractors and designers and engineers And the box on the left, and on the right you would have the operations and maintenance firms that are specialized in handling pavement, and the guardrails, and the lighting, and the intelligent tolling system, toll collection, the clearing of debris, and other obligations. There are big companies out there that are participating in Mp3's but they also put up a portion of their balance sheet and they even take an equity investment position so that this whole higher structure is integrated. You have equity you have designing instruction and you have ONM integrated to deliver the project and therefore comes the efficiency in the costs savings and other value that is. This generated out of the P3's. So this is a structure that will look very familiar, if you are pursuing a P3 in setting up a project company and getting ready to deliver the actual asset upon financial close.
