Investment trust insider on UK government’s misguided subsidy shake up – James Carthew: Gov policy shift is bad news for infra trusts and must be resisted
The moving of goal posts creates a precedent for the government to change the terms later if it does not like them.
I caught up with Vietnam Enterprise (VEIL) manager Dominic Scriven recently and came away just as excited about the potential for the country as I have been for a long while now.
Part of the attraction is the Vietnamese government’s commitment to upgrading the country’s infrastructure. Amongst other things, it is building a 1,500km high speed railway to link the North and the South, two nuclear plants, a significant investment in LNG, 320km of underground metro lines in Hanoi, ports, a new airport for Ho Chi Minh City, and 5,000km of new roads. This is designed to support its 10% per annum GDP growth target for the next five years.
I also heard from Jean-Hugues de Lamaze, manager of Ecofin Global Utilities and Infrastructure (EGL). He is highlighting the investment in power generation and distribution that is needed to meet the growth of AI, with demand for power in the US forecast to climb by 40% and in Europe 50% over the next decade…
…Investment companies are a very good way of structuring investment in infrastructure, and it makes no sense that the UK government has seemingly gone out of its way to undermine the sector.
Until recently, chief of the problems that it had created was the misleading cost disclosure issue. Years after it was flagged to the government, it looks likely that this is being sorted.
However, in the meantime it has done real damage to the sector, as Bluefield Solar Income’s (BSIF) recent decision to put itself up for sale illustrates.
Now we have a proposal to change the terms of the contracts on subsidies… read more here