The Future of Project
Finance After taking a battering from spectacular failures due to the Asian economic crisis impact on emerging nations and markets worldwide, project finance is making a cautious, conservative rebound. Private and institutional investors are taking an increasing part in financing domestic and international major infrastructure, power and utility projects through innovative funding structures. From the paper: "
Limited recourse
loans are a well-defined form of borrowing; any transaction that does not include elements unique to this structure does not strictly qualify as project finance. Limited recourse loans were invented in the late 1920s and early 1930s to
provide US wildcatters with longer-
term production finance. During the 1930s, drilling became deeper and resultant cost higher; more extended financing terms were needed. The improved engineering
techniques of the early 1940s provided the ability to forecast the future recovery of oil reserves, and some banks
applied these new techniques to justify production loans in excess of the three years' limited term previously applied. Since the project itself was deemed able to support a level of production that would provide for repayment from the project's cash flow, the creditworthiness of the borrower was irrelevant."