Data methodology

Proximo aims to produce the most accurate, reliable, powerful and usable body of data for the project, energy and infrastructure finance market. The work of Proximo’s data team will be combined with the powerful crowdsourced platform of sister company Tagmydeals, and our in-house data tool, to give you unparalleled insight into the workings of the markets in which you work.

Proximo welcomes data submissions from deal participants - grantors, sponsors, lenders, and advisers. This will provide the market with accurate information about best practice in project development and finance, and allow for fair league table credit.

General guidance

• Proximo Playbook will feature any financing transaction that directly finances greenfield and brownfield, moveable and immovable energy and infrastructure assets
• Proximo Playbook will feature sovereign or corporate financings where their proceeds directly finance infrastructure assets, though they will not feature in our project finance data
• Proximo Playbook will not feature commercial or residential real estate, even where it is non-recourse

Eligible transaction types

Proximo’s database captures four types of financing for projects - all of which must be attached to a named project in one of the sectors identified below:

1. Project finance: Non- or partial-recourse debt financings that private sponsors close for the construction, refinancing, or acquisition of energy, infrastructure or resources assets. The borrower will be a special purpose vehicle (SPV). Non-recourse - the debt obligations of the SPV do not carry any guarantees from its shareholders. Limited recourse - the debt obligations of the SPV will carry partial, not full obligations from its shareholders.
2. Corporate finance: Full-recourse or on-balance sheet debt financings that private companies close for the construction, refinancing, or acquisition of energy, infrastructure or resources assets. The financing must be attached to a named project or asset - general corporate purposes borrowing would not count. The borrower will be a listed or private company, or, in very limited circumstances, a fund/investment manager.
3. SoE finance: Full-recourse or on-balance sheet debt financings that state-owned entities (e.g. roads operators or national oil companies) close for the construction, refinancing, or acquisition of energy, infrastructure or resources assets. (Non-recourse financings that these entities close would be counted as project finance). The borrower would be a state-owned entity at least 50.1% controlled by government.
4. Public finance: Borrowing that a government, or one of its ministries, or an SoE with a full sovereign guarantee, or sub-sovereign entity such as state/province/municipality closes for the construction, refinancing, or acquisition of energy, infrastructure or resources assets. The financing must be attached to a named project or asset - general government borrowing would not count. The borrower would be a sovereign or sub-sovereign government or one of their departments, or a state-owned entity with the debt guaranteed by government.

These transactions will be used to assemble the following datasets/tables

• Project finance (all project finance transactions)
• Private energy and infrastructure finance (all project and corporate transactions)
• Public infrastructure finance (all SoE and public finance transactions)
• Infrastructure finance (all transaction types)

Eligible assets and sectors:

• Power: Combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT), simple-cycle gas turbine, gas-fired cogeneration, oil-fired, coal-fired (subcritical, super-critical, clean coal, carbon capture and storage), nuclear, large hydroelectric and pumped storage, transmission, battery storage
• Renewables: Onshore wind, offshore wind (fixed and floating), solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrating solar, solar thermal (solar plus heat storage, usually concentrating), solar plus battery, biomass, biogas (landfill and anaerobic digester), small hydroelectric, tidal, geothermal, biofuels
• Oil and gas: Upstream (oil platforms, drill-ships, reserves-based loan, floating production storage and offloading), midstream (pipelines, tankers, storage, compressors), downstream (refineries, retail assets, gas to liquids), petrochemicals (including plastics and fertilisers), and LNG (liquefaction terminals, tankers, receiving terminals. Tankers, drill-ships and FPSOs should benefit from long-term charters.
• Mining and metals: Coal, base metals (copper, iron ore, bauxite, zinc), precious metals (gold, silver, platinum), others (rare earths, lithium, diamonds). Associated logistics assets to be included under transport, but smelters to be included here.
• Transport: Roads, bridges, tunnels (both tolled and benefiting from availability payments), ports, airports, freight rail, passenger rail, rolling stock, light rail, metro/underground, bus rapid transit, intermodal transfer facilities, canals, ferries, service stations, ship-yards, dry-bulk and container ships (with appropriate long-term charters), EV vehicle infrastructure
• Social infrastructure: Schools (public), hospitals (public), government offices, universities (public), student housing, social housing, courts, prisons, emergency services, defence, street lighting
• Water and waste: Water treatment, sewage, desalination, irrigation, aqueducts
• Leisure: Non-recourse stadiums, theme parks, casinos, hotels (will only appear in project finance tables)
• Telecoms/Digital: Fixed line networks, cellular networks, cellular towers, local fibre-optic networks, broadband operators, satellites, data centers
• Manufacturing: True non-recourse deals for manufacturing facilities (will only feature in project finance tables), eg, cement, pulp, steel

Location

Please specify the country and state/county/province in which the project is located. If the borrower under the financing is located in a different jurisdiction, then please let us know

Currency

Please specify the currency in which the borrowings take place, and note where this varies between tranches. Proximo’s platform will be able to make the appropriate conversions into USD, though feel free to specify the most appropriate conversion rate

Dates

Please specify the project’s date of commercial close (project agreements with offtaker/grantor signed), debt signing (loan documentation and project agreements all signed), and financial close (all conditions precedent met and funding to take place). For bond financings, please specify pricing date as well. Where one is available for a greenfield asset (i.e. a project to be constructed), please supply estimated project completion date.

Eligible financing types

Each financing will include one or some of these financing types, split between facilities, tranches or sources.

• Construction loans. Short or long-term loans (greater than 365 days) from commercial banks
• Term loans: Long-term loans from a commercial bank used to build or buy assets
• Direct export credit agency loans: Short or long-term loans. Can be tied to equipment sales/contracts or untied. Can sit alongside other debt sources
• Export credit agency-covered loans: Loans from commercial or institutional lenders covered by export credit insurance (commercial, political or a combination)
• DFI direct/A loans: Long-term loans from a multilateral or bilateral development finance lender (or concessional finance fund managed by such a lender)
• DFI B loans: Long-term loans from a commercial bank, institutional lender, fund, or additional DFI that sit alongside an A loan from a DFI
• Insured/enhanced loans: Loans that benefit from partial credit guarantees, political risk insurance
• Term B/leveraged loans: Loans with minimal mandatory principal amortisation, usually sold to non-bank lenders (mutual funds, CLOS etc). Can be tiered according to security interest
• Private placement: Long-dated debt financing from an institutional lender that features bank loan-like covenants. Lenders, where identified, usually receive league table credit
• Project bonds: Liquid listed or (US) 144A eligible long-dated financings that are placed to institutional investors. Underwriters typically receive league table credit unless a small number of buyers can be identified.
• Islamic facility. A financing facility that provides a borrower with similar economics to debt, but is considered shari’ah-compliant
• Unfunded debt facilities: Letters of credit or revolving credit facility to support debt service, VAT claims, hedge/offtake counterparty requirements or provide some other credit enhancement. Usually from commercial banks or DFIs, sometimes externally enhanced by an ECA or other insurance provider.
• Subordinated loans: Whether from an external provider or from a shareholder, these sit below senior debt in terms of security
• Equity: Sponsor capital contributions to a special purpose vehicle (as distinct from shareholder loans), usually in proportion to ownership shares. If equity is contributed in kind, please specify its valuation. Transactions consisting solely of equity will be considered corporate, those solely of grant funding will be considered government finance.
• Grant funding: Where government provides an upfront capital contribution this should be specified. If some or all of this grant funding is used to retire short-term construction debt, this should also be specified

The total transaction size should typically comprise equity (cash and in-kind) and all types of debt (funded and unfunded). Total project size should typically comprise equity (cash and in-kind), funded debt and government grant (where appropriate).

Sale-leasebacks, crowdfunding, securitisations of future revenues and other non-traditional financing structures will be considered, depending on the asset they are related to. Please contact team@proximoinfra.com for guidance.

Transaction roles

• Grantor or offtaker: The source of a concession/offtake agreement and/or revenues under that agreement. Usually a government, SoE, or utility. Sometimes a project might have more than one, which case league table credit should be shared according to share of revenues/production capacity (where known) or pro rata
• Sponsor: Shareholder in a project company/SPV (project finance), sometimes described as developer or corporate. Share of equity commitment (and of transaction size) allocated as specified in shareholding proportions or divided pro rata if not known
• Borrower: Either the SPV name (where known) or project name (project finance), or name of the corporate borrower (corporate loan, SoE) or government (government loan)
• Mandated lead arranger: May include additional modifiers (eg global, coordinating, original), or be attached to an agent title (eg. administrative, technical, hedging, ECA). The top tier of underwriting banks, which provide the largest amounts of debt, some kind of underwriting commitment, or contribution to the deal structure. Each lender’s share of a tranche or transaction can be specified or divided equally between banks. While DFIs or ECAs can take all or part of a deal’s mandated lead arranger credit, they typically do not appear in league tables unless they can demonstrate they operate on a completely commercial arms-length basis from government.
• Bond underwriter/placement agent/arranger: A bank or other institution that underwrites and places a bond financing or private placement (where the lender is not identified). Credit is allocated according to a specified formula or divided equally between institutions.
• Lender: This reflects the final lending amounts on a deal after syndication has taken in place, and will include all lenders at their final hold position. If not specified, all named lenders/arrangers will share the total amount equally.
• Construction contractor: Usually a single named engineering, procurement and construction contractor. Where this is a joint venture, please supply the names of the shareholders/partners and proportional ownership, where relevant. Where there are multiple contractors and no single EPC, their share of a project’s work will be divided equally or according to a share of total project costs.
• Insurer: Whether a political risk insurer, monoline bond insurer, ECA, partial guarantee provider, first loss provider, construction bond provider. Please specify par insured.
• Legal adviser: This covers any law firm that carries out work in connection with a project financing, though league table credit will only be given to lead lender/underwriter counsel and lead borrower counsel (each with half the transaction value). Where more than one firm claims either role, it will be subdivided equally for league table credit. For other legal roles, either representing other project participants or advising on specific matters (eg environmental) this role can be noted but will not attract league table credit.
• Financial adviser: A firm that advises a grantor, borrower or sponsor on a financing either separately to, or in addition to, a lending role. An adviser will be given full transaction value credit, unless more than one firm advises a project participant, in which case, credit is shared equally or using a specified formula.
• Technical adviser: This role comprises all other due diligence functions, including, but not limited to, independent engineer, owner’s engineer, market/revenue consultant, insurance adviser, green bond/loan certification, model auditor, hedging adviser, ratings agency.