Adebayo Ogunlesi, managing director and head
of global projects for Credit Suisse First Boston Corp., has engineered
financing for some of the biggest energy projects throughout the world.
His firm, Credit Suisse First Boston, under Ogunlesi's direction, helped
AES acquire generation assets from Edison International in California
with financing in the $725 million area. Ogunlesi's division helped Texaco
and Mission Energy raise about $400 million for Tri Energy in Thailand
and worked with the Polsky Group to raise $100 million for the Androscoggin
Power Project in Maine. He is also working with InterGen out of the United
Kingdom and Hong Kong to finance the Mezhiou Wan power project in China
and helping sponsors raise capital for projects in India, Mid-East and
US "It has been a very active year," he reported.
The latest development in an already full portfolio
of achievement for Ogunlesi is the revolutionary financing arrangements
for clients. Helping to make the cost of power more manageable, financing
is now more closely allied to the useful life of facilities or plants.
Whereby financing extended to the 10- to 14-year
range in the past, Ogunlesi states that financing tenors are more closely
aligned to the useful life of the plant or facility in the 15- to 25-year
range. In the world of energy financing, this development opens the door
for many more ventures.
In an exclusive interview with World Cogeneration
in his New York office, Ogunlesi assessed the Asian crisis. Interest in
Asia has slowed because of economic conditions, but he expects it to pick
up.
"The two primary sources of funds, banks
and the capital markets, are drawing back. A number of Asian banks that
normally participate in the project finance business, including Japanese
banks, are focused on domestic issues. The Korean and Singapore banks
are also dealing with internal issues. So there is shrinkage in the capacity
of funding," he says.
"The fact that there is contraction in
Asia and lesser relative interest in Asian power projects does not necessarily
help U.S. sources and sponsors of financing," he added. "People
take note of difficulties in Asia, so there is going to be an overall
pause in the amount of power generation projects in such countries. But
in the long run, countries still need more power, and private companies
are going to have to help them finance, build and operate power plants."
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