Corporate lending facilities are available to small and medium size companies in the nuclear supply chain. There is a good awareness among many of the major banks and equity providers of the growth prospects for the UK, European and global nuclear industry.
The factors which will impact the ability of individual companies to raise such corporate lending facilities include the phasing and timing of the company’s product in the build programme, the ability of the company’s products to be integrated into different reactor designs, the prospect of being aligned to one of the major supply chain entities as part of the currently three new build consortia, the nature of the subcontract arrangements, and the competitiveness of the company’s products against suppliers elsewhere in the UK and abroad.
Over £12 billion in total has been made available through loan facilities to UK companies involved in construction/engineering and/or utilities since 20071 as illustrated in the chart below. Whilst there was a dip in facilities being made available in 2008 of just under £2 billion, the market has remained relatively robust.
The major banking institutions which have a track record of providing corporate lending facilities to the UK companies involved in construction/engineering and/or utilities includes, but are not limited to:
- Banco
- Bank of China
- Bank of Ireland
- Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi
- Bank of Scotland
- BNP Paribas
- Commerzbank
- The Co-operative Bank
- Deutsche Bank
- Fortis
- HSBC
- ING
- Lloyds Banking Group
- Mizuho Corporation
- NIBC
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Rabobank Ireland
Equity providers who have invested in UK based assets in the construction/engineering and/or utilities sectors2 includes, but are not limited to:
- 3i Group
- Arclight Capital Partners
- Dunedin Capital Partners
- Englefield Capital
- Hg Capital
- Infracapital Partners
- Lyceum Capital
- Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets
- NIBC Infrastructure Partners
1Ernst & Young LLP analysed data from 2007 infrastructure investments in UK-based assets in the construction/engineering and/or utilities sectors; data sourced from Preqin as at 17 December 2010.
2Ernst & Young LLP analysed data from 2007 for loan facilities signed to UK companies involved in construction/engineering and/or utilities; data sourced from Bloomberg as at 17 December 2010.
