February 2010 Issue

Mota-Engil last year became the first Portuguese company to have successfully won and financed a road concession in the southeast African nation of Mozambique. The firm’s head of Africa Luis Parreirão reveals details of the pathfinder contract.

Raymond LaHood arguably wasn’t the most likely candidate to fill the post of US Secretary of Transportation. But like other famous names to come from his state, he’s got bold ambitions – and no desire to stop building. He just needs some help from the private sector to make it happen, Cezary Podkul finds.

An internship application for the ages

Chicago Mayor Daley’s infrastructure deals have inspired many things over the years: a nationwide search for more Skyways to auction off; a healthy debate about privatisation and municipal finance; and now, it seems, the next round of spring recruiting preferences at local MBA programmes.

How a tumbling picture made its point

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is hoping to create a new paradigm for investing in infrastructure. Part of its ‘toolkit’ involves people with experience in crackers – but not the RJR Nabisco kind. Cezary Podkul caught up with infrastructure pointmen Marc Lipschultz and Raj Agrawal to find out more

Canada's RBC Global Asset Management already offered a range of investment strategies across its $200bn in assets under management, but not infrastructure - until now

Negotiations are ongoing to salvage Portugal’s €5bn roads programme after a dramatic move by the country’s national Court of Auditors

The infrastructure heavyweight has hired ex venture professional Bill Green to spearhead its renewable energy infrastructure push in North America.

Cost-effective, readily available and operating against a highly favourable regulatory backdrop – no surprise that wind energy has continued to attract investment amid economic turmoil.

The sale of EDF’s UK electricity network could be one of the year’s blockbuster deals. But tough new regulations threaten to net the French operator less than it initially expected.

For reasons of scale, investors in European infrastructure have so far found it difficult to access the undoubtedly attractive renewable energy space. But with small assets being rolled up into big portfolios and utilities shedding sizeable renewable interests from their balance sheets, this appears to be changing. Andy Thomson and Bruno Alves report on the opportunities and challenges of going green.

After spending time in Washington DC quizzing key policymakers on their appetite to finally create a US infrastructure bank, Cezary Podkul finds that prospects for the long-neglected measure may finally be looking up

Infrastructure was a hot topic at the World Economic Forum – but where were its celebrity proponents?

EQT recently bought a Swedish gas utility with an under-used pipeline in a country which is still putting the finishing touches to its regulatory framework. These obstacles were enough to dissuade many of the bidders initially in the running, but EQT pressed on. Bruno Alves talks to the Swedish firm to find out how it plans to overcome these difficulties