Stadium financing : a case study of the Stade de France

Abstract

Both finance and construction of major projects have dramatically evolved in the past ten years. Technological breakthrough such as computer orientated design, new cements, new machines have led to a more efficient production process. In the mean time, project financing has been greatly advanced and new techniques have appeared. Large and complex projects have started to be partially funded by the private sector as a result of the will to cut public spending. Indeed, States and governments realized that the returns should be taken more seriously in publicly supported infrastructure projects. To make many projects bankable, new mixes of public-private partnership with new financing schemes have been developed. Financial engineers have developed new securities, backed by the future stream of cash flows generated by the project income. Those securities, enhanced by risk-specialized agencies, will maybe constitute a major innovation and will allow financial engineers to access a new set of investors: small bondholders. This thesis is focused on one such scheme: the financing of the Stade de France.