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Capital markets: an alternative financing avenue for the shipping industry 28 February 2012 Introduction Corporate Bonds Convertible Bonds Covered Bonds and other structured bond financing solutions The Islamic finance alternative - Sukuk Conclusion View individual pages Introduction Traditionally, shipping companies have relied on bank debt to finance their operations and the acquisition of vessels. The recent credit crisis and the tightening of credit conditions, particularly in Europe, are now prompting them to seek other forms of funding. One such alternative source of finance that has become available to shipping companies in recent times has been the international debt capital markets. Indeed, there is evidence of an increasing number of bond issuances by shipping companies from the end of 2009 and through 2010 and 2011. Shipping companies have opted for a variety of bond instruments, depending on their needs and market conditions. These have ranged from relatively straight forward "plain vanilla" corporate bonds through to more complex instruments such as convertible bonds and structured bonds. One alternative capital markets instrument that is now also emerging is the Shari'ah- compliant bond, the Sukuk. This article will consider the advantages and disadvantages of these forms of financing in more detail. Back to top Corporate Bonds The use of bonds by shipping companies to raise finance is certainly not a new development in the shipping industry. Historically bond issuance by shipping companies has been less frequent and bond issuances typically have involved relatively small tranches which have been used to supplement much larger bank debt facilities. However, the end of 2009 and the first half of 2010 saw a surge in larger bond issuances by shipping companies, including several repeat issuances. For example, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (O.S.K.) issued several series of bonds between 2008 and 2011 (including two issuances in 2009 and one in 2011 of ¥20 b

Maryland & Virginia Telework How can municipal and regional governments best promote telework? This case study highlights the telework program that originated in the Washington DC area in 1996, and the state-wide program that was subsequently established in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The later offers cost reimbursement (up to $35,000 per business), free personal assistance, and promotional "Telework Days." Both programs help overcome key policy and adoption barriers, and both have impressive impact data. Background This case study focuses on telework initiatives in the region of Washington, DC, which covers the District of Columbia and surrounding jurisdictions (counties and cities within Maryland and Virginia). In 2010, the region had about 2.8 million workers and the regional forecast is to add 1.2 million new jobs to the region by 2030. Such growth forecasts will impact the region's transportation infrastructure. Commuter Connections, a regional network of transportation organizations coordinated by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), started in 1974 to provide mobility solutions in the region. The network is administered through the Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization, part of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB)   Setting Objectives The Commonwealth set a goal of having 20% of its eligible workforce [approximately 105,000 employees) teleworking by 2010. Getting Informed "Dating back to the late 1980s, the TPB conducted a series of reviews of telecommuting pilot programs, which were in operation in Los Angeles and in Arlington County, Virginia," explained Nicholas Ramfos, Commuter Connection's Alternative Commute Programs Director. "These programs were primarily started at the local government level with the idea that lessons learned could be shared with the rest of the businesses in those jurisdictions and beyond." The TPB also reviewed the federal government's Flexiplace progr

Ppp and Project Financing in Logistics Infrastructure In: Business and Management Ppp and Project Financing in Logistics Infrastructure Project Finance and Private Public Partnership in financing logistics infrastructure. Introduction Finance scholars acknowledge a clear-cut distinction between corporate finance and project finance. The two techniques are considered as basically different approaches to the problem of raising debt to fund capital investments. In corporate finance lenders assess the creditworthy of a whole company, evaluating the going concern, the full range of projects in place, and the cautional value of all the assets. The amount to lend and the risk-spread are decided on a global evaluation of the firm's economic and financial situation. In project finance, the goal is the implementation of a specific project. Lenders typically finance a special purpose vehicle for the development and construction of a particular project, looking to cashflows and project's assets as sources of payment for their loans, rather than to the credit ratings of the project sponsors. Historically project finance was widely used in financing transport and logistics infrastructure, like railways or channels. More recently, in the past decades, there has been a new wave of global interest: large amounts of debt have been raised to finance projects like motorways, distriparks, maritime ports, intermodal logistic platforms. These infrastructures are built, owned and operated by special purpose vehicles (SPV), organized for that single project and financed mainly by debt. In many cases, SPVs are not wholly owned by private investors since governments, public authorities and international organizations take equity stakes in them, creating private-public partnerships (PPP). This brief note will not explore all the technical aspects of project finance, that have been extensively covered by academic scholars and practitioners in a wide literature on this subject. The foc

Publications Note: Several of these documents contain draft versions of published work (or in different stages of being published). For citations and quotations please refer to the officially published version. The contents of this site can be freely used for personal use ONLY. Although the material contained in this web site is freely available, it is not public domain. Its contents, in whole or in part (including graphics and datasets), cannot be copied and published in ANY form (printed or electronic) without consent. Permission to use any graphic material herein in any form of publication, such as an article, a book or a conference presentation, on any media must be requested prior to use. Books | Book Chapters | Articles in Preparation | Refereed Articles | Special Issues | Reviews & Reports Books Rodrigue, J-P, T. Notteboom and J. Shaw (2012) (eds) The Sage Handbook of Transport Studies, London: Sage. Forthcoming. Rodrigue, J-P, C. Comtois and B. Slack (2009) The Geography of Transport Systems, Second Edition, London: Routledge, 352 pages. ISBN: 9780415483247. Rodrigue, J-P, C. Comtois and B. Slack (2006) The Geography of Transport Systems, London: Routledge, 296 pages, ISBN: 0415354412. Rodrigue, J-P (2000) L'espace économique mondial: les économies avancées et la mondialisation, (The Global Economic Space : Advanced Economies and Globalization), Collection géographie contemporaine, Sainte Foy : Presses de l'Université du Québec, 534 pages. ISBN 2760510379. PricewaterhouseCoopers Best Business Book Award. Book Chapters (2012) "Commercial Goods Transport" in UN-HABITAT, 2013 Global Report on Human Settlements: Sustainable Urban Transport, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, London: Earthscan. In preparation. (2012) "Transport, Flows and Globalization", in J-P Rodrigue, T. Notteboom and J. Shaw (eds) The Sage Handbook of Transport Studies, London: Sage. In preparation. Rodrigue, J-P, B. Slack and C. Comtois (2012) "Green Supply Cha

Transportation costs unquestionably impact a company's financial performance. And yet, for most CFOs, controlling these costs sits far down on the priority list. Despite strong evidence that better collaboration between Transportation and Finance leads to more informed and smarter decisions, active collaboration is rare. Why? Because CFOs and logistics managers view transportation through a very different set of lenses. While CFOs evaluate strategies based on the impact on profitability, asset utilization, and other company-wide metrics, logistics managers focus more on their own departmental budgets and metrics and don't always communicate the broad consequences of transportation decisions up and down the line. As a result, CFOs can get a false read on the financial impact of transportation and logistics decisions.

METROPOLITAN INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVE | NUMBER 19 « Previous | Next » Access for Value: Financing Transportation Through Land Value Capture Transportation, Infrastructure, Environment David M. Levinson, R.P. Braun-CTS Chair of Transportation Engineering, University of Minnesota Emilia Istrate, Senior Research Analyst, Metropolitan Policy Program The Brookings Institution Save Download the Full Paper (PDF) Facebook Share inShare 4 StumbleUpon E-mail Print APRIL 28, 2011 - The worsening financial state of the federal, state, and local governments is a frequent sub­ject in media and political circles. As discretionary expenditures, transportation programs likely face significant changes if they are to cope with spending cuts across all levels of government. These changes would require not only reprioritizing the use of scarce funds, cutting ineffective programs, and improving the performance of remaining programs, but also encour­aging states and local partners to find other sources of funding for transportation. Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Save Subscribe Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative ALSO IN THIS SERIES NUMBER 24 Moving Forward on Public Private Partnerships: U.S. and International Experience With PPP Units Emilia Istrate, Robert Puentes, December 08, 2011 NUMBER 8 Transit Access and Zero-Vehicle Households Adie Tomer, Robert Puentes, August 18, 2011 NUMBER 7 How the U.S. Can Improve Transportation Policy Robert Puentes, May 23, 2011 View All » Measuring accessibility is an essential tool in such a makeover because it reveals the benefits of a transportation system. Accessibility is the ease of reaching valued destinations, such as jobs, shops, schools, entertainment, and recreation. As such, accessibility creates value. Capturing some of this value would allow state and local governments to invest in the operations, maintenance, and in some cases expansion of their transportation networks. Accessibility, as an outcome-oriented metric,

Conference Papers and Presentations Since mid-1990s, ENPOS members have presented their research activities in port economics, management and policies in over 200 academic conferences. A selection of the most recent (since 2007) of these conference papers and presentations are available and can be freely downloaded: 2011 Vitsounis T.K. and Pallis A.A. (2011). Relationships between port service providers and users: An empirical study. International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October.  Download Jacobs, W., De Langen, Peter W. and Notteboom, Theo E. (2011). Institutional Plasticity and Path Dependence in Seaports: Interactions Between Institutions, Port Governance Reform and Port Authority Routines. IAME Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October. Download Kaselimi, E., Notteboom, T.E. (2011), Preferred scale of Container Terminals In Seaports: A statistical analysis on parameters and size Distribution. IAME Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October.  Download Kaselimi, E., Notteboom, T.E. (2011). A Game theoretical approach to the inter-relation between terminal scale and port competition. IAME Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October.  Download Leal, E., Sanchez, R., Notteboom, T.E., Perez, G., Doerr, O. (2011), The role of knowledge and capabilities in port development: a case study for the west coast of South America, IAME Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October.  Download Lekakou M.B., Pallis A.A., Vaggelas, G.K., Vitsounis T.K. (2011). Coastal Shipping and island attractiveness: Perspectives from Europe, IAME Conference, 2011, Santiago, Chile, October.  Download Brooks M.R., and Pallis A.A. (2011). Issues in Port Policy: A look back to look forward. 46th Annual Canadian Transportation Research Forum (CTRF) Conference, Gatineau, Canada, June.  Download Chen L. & Notteboom T. (2011). Determinants for assigning value-added logistics services to logistics centers within a supply chain configurat

EMBARQ Network Launches New Association to Advance Public Transport in Latin American Cities Published on Apr 5 2010 Curitiba's public transport system has become a model for other Latin American cities. Photo by Mariana Gil/CTS-Brasil. CURITIBA, Brazil, March 29, 2010 - Top executives from Latin America's most influential transit agencies will gather next month to launch the Latin American Association for Bus Rapid Transit and Integrated Transport Systems--a member-driven organization that seeks to advance urban public transport and improve quality of life in the region's biggest cities. EMBARQ - The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport, which launched the initiative, will serve as the association's Technical Secretariat, under the leadership of EMBARQ's Director for Latin America Luis Gutierrez. Guitierrez said, "Despite the progress of urban mass transit in Latin America, the managers of transit agencies and other transport projects do not currently have the tools to deal with some of the problems that exist in the industry. This new association will help transport officials identify common challenges, share their experiences and knowledge, and ultimately, improve their services." Association members will pay an annual fee to participate in meetings and workshops that will take place throughout the year. EMBARQ Network experts will work with members to measure the performance, impact and management of their city's existing transit systems, as well as to plan and implement future transport projects. Specific technical and managerial support will come from the EMBARQ Network's three Latin American centers: the Center for Sustainable Transport in Brazil (CTS-Brasil), the Center for Sustainable Transport in Mexico (CTS-México), and the Center for Sustainable Transport and Health in the Andean Region (CTSS-Andino.). "Latin America has some of the highest rates of urbanization and motorization in the world, leading to

Throughout Europe, we are witnessing massive transfers of resources from the public to the private sphere. The political responses to the crises are defined by austerity measures and by cuts to social spending, driving Europe further into recession. >From Greece to Spain, from London to Rome, European people are increasingly aware of the need for a different model of globalisation. From those resisting the privatisation of resources (for example in Italy with the water referendum, and currently in Romania) to the recent occupations of public spaces against neoliberalism (for example in the UK and Spain), this is the moment to construct and alternative Europe which is not a product of neoliberal politics, but the political expression of European citizens. Within this context, over forty organisations, networks and social movements from eight European countries will meet in the 600-seat Valle Theatre in Rome to organise a common front to construct an alternative European model. This three-day forum will focus on the construction of common transnational campaigns on the thematics of the commons and guaranteed minimum income as well as the battle against precarity, also utilising the new method provided with the European citizens? initiative. The event will be a true opportunity to build European networks and campaigns that will take concrete forms in follow-up meetings in Spain, the UK, Romania, Bulgaria and France in the following months to continue the work begun in Rome. The emphasis on concrete campaigns will be the starting point to engage in a reflection on the revision of the EU Treaties, to propose an alternative vision of Europe. The Rome forum is organised by European Alternatives, the International University College Turin, Teatro Valle, Centro Studi per l'Alternativa Comune, Municipality of Naples, ARCI, Il Manifesto, Basic Income Network, Tilt, Rete della Conoscenza, Cilap-eapn, Altramente, Osservatorio Europa, MFE. ---- FORUM PROGR

Seminar Papers Access to Health The application of accessibility planning to develop a locational policy for the West Midlands Evaluation of transport accessibility for elderly and disabled people: A proposal for an activity-based quality of life approach A healthy food physical accessibility standard and its implications for transport, spatial planning and public health. HSTAT - Towards a better understanding of the impact of accessibility on healthcare reconfiguration policies Health and transport - two sides of the same coin Planning for better access to health Assessing the health impact of local traffic policy plans Health impacts of childrens' traffic exposure Incorporating health and social benefits with user benefits in the valuation of urban realm improvements Development of an urban railway network to improve passenger health