3. The basis and principles of the financial strategy of the project company
The participants of the project create a special project company (Project Company or “Special Purpose Vehicle” SPV). SPV is created only for the project implementation. It has neither financial history nor property for the pledge. It lies at the center of all the contractual and financial relationships in the PPP project and cannot carry out any other business that is not part of the project. In the event that the project defaults or experiences other financial difficulties, the SPV alone is responsible; the parent organizations have no obligation to be accountable for the financial performance of the project
To fulfill the main goal and key functions, the most important of which is fund raising, SPV should develop a financing strategy for the project. Financial strategy of a project company is a long-term financial plan for the organization of cash flow formation, distribution and optimization, which ensures the achievement of its main goal. The financial strategy should provide a sufficient amount of capital and determine its optimal structure. The optimal capital structure, based on trade-off theory of capital structure of Brennan, Schwartz and Leland and other researches, is a compromise when the capital structure balances the risk of bankruptcy with the tax savings of debt. The optimal capital structure should be a target structure for the company.
Any project regardless of its kind goes through certain development phases: design stage, implementation stage and operation stage. The schedule of the project life cycle where the listed stages are highlighted is given in Fig. 3. Each stage has its purpose and objectives and requires funds for it implementation. The financial strategy based on the project life cycle should provide capital to accomplish these purposes and objectives. Sources of funds and financial instruments are selected individually for each of them under the most acceptable SPV conditions.