Last weekend, New Zealand was hit by another cyclone. If you’re still sceptical about climate change…just look at the statistics. Or your insurance premium. But that’s for another day. This time, the damage was limited. Much less than the previous cyclones. And here it comes… “They exaggerated.” “It wasn’t that bad.” “We overprepared.” The usual. Short-term memory. Short-term thinking. The same people who forget that not long ago we had: warnings that were too soft impacts that were worse...
1 day ago • 1 min read
“Surely the English hate me, but the Scots love me… and that’s what matters.” — Diego Armando Maradona There’s an immortal lesson in that sentence. You’re not going to be popular defending PPPs. Pushing PPPs. Loving PPPs. Delivering PPPs. Or being the one in the room who actually understands them. And that’s fine. Because this isn’t about popularity. It’s about outcomes. Think of: the banks the equity providers the consultants …and yes, the taxpayer When PPPs are done right, they work. When...
2 days ago • 1 min read
“I’m a PPP freak.” That’s what I told a client last week. Then I killed the deal in 30 minutes. “But this is not a PPP project.” No model. No workshops. No 200-page reports. Just experience. Because after you’ve seen enough projects, the disasters, the political theatre, the “too good to be true” bids… you start seeing patterns. Fast. You don’t need months. You need clarity. 30 minutes is enough to know: if a project is bankable… or dead on arrival if the contract creates value… or prints...
3 days ago • 1 min read
2012 Kenya. Elections coming. Security concerns rising. Investors… nervous. And still… The Lake Turkana Wind Power Project pushed toward financial close. 310 MW. One of the largest wind farms in Africa. Remote. Very remote. No proper roads. Weak grid. Logistics… borderline insane. Ideas such as domesticate zebras on the table… This wasn’t a project. This was a bet. And the closing? Just what I love… Pure tension. Lenders asking for more guarantees. Sponsors juggling political risk. Government...
4 days ago • 1 min read
That’s how many countries approach infrastructure. Big pipeline. Big announcements. Zero learning. Norway did the opposite. Smart those guys. In the early 2000s, they tested PPPs with just three projects: E39 Klett–Bårdshaug (opened 2005) E39 Lyngdal–Flekkefjord (opened 2006) E18 Grimstad–Kristiansand (opened 2009) That’s it. Three shots. Not fifteen. Not a political fireworks show. A controlled experiment. Same model. Same timeframe. Comparable results. And guess what? They delivered. On...
6 days ago • 1 min read
A few days ago, I had a big argument with my team in Panama. They had spent almost 3 weeks trying to convince a client to change banks for her mortgage. It was a no-brainer.Lower interest rates.Lower fees. They showed her, over and over again, different scenarios… all in vain. You may wonder how, after 2 or 3 days of trying, they kept pushing. She is a public servant.And the team was trying to convince her to move from a government-owned bank to a fully private one. I repeat.Public servant....
7 days ago • 1 min read
The French writer and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add… but when there is nothing left to take away.” And yet… People still have 10-line disclaimers in their email signatures. Or worse… the “please don’t print this email” line. I’ve reviewed bids where they were one step away from including the name and breed of the bid manager’s dog. Horror vacui. Or just… “just in case”. Every extra word that doesn’t serve a purpose?...
8 days ago • 1 min read
In Japan, they often say: “Your life is like a garden.” If you’re not intentional… it gets overrun with weeds. Randomness. Distraction. Noise. This happens when you have too many goals. Too many priorities. Because let me tell you something. If you don’t have a clear maximum of 3 priorities… you have none. You get distracted. With lesser goals. Stupid goals. Or worse… scrolling. Looking for your next dopamine hit. This applies to your life. But also to how you work. If your door is always...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Hospital PPPs have a bad reputation. Delays. Overpricing. Rigidity. You’ve heard the stories. I remember when I work at ACS that any RFP announcement of a hospital was received as the last Trump’s tweet… We didn’t know what to do about… Let’s now talk about the Alzira Hospital PPP in Spain. Launched in 1999. First of its kind. A full model: Design. Build. Finance. Operate. Not just the building. Healthcare delivery. High risk. High exposure. High scrutiny. And still… It worked. Well… somehow....
9 days ago • 1 min read