There are two sources of private capital to support the requirements of build-operate-transfer (BOT) infrastructure project. One is equity financing which is financed by debt instruments, the other is debt financing which is financed by equity instruments. Theoretically, the self-liquidation of project is the key factor of private capital in the investment of the infrastructure project, and the self-liquidation is related to the cost of capital. This research is based on the risk structure of interest rate to propose an integrated risk assessment and analysis model (IRAM) and use this model to calculate the cost of capital in project finance. The Taiwan High Speed Rail BOT program will be used to test and verify the IRAM model.
The first part of IRAM is integrated risk assessment model which creates a process of assessing the risk factors and introduces a methodology to evaluate the risk adjustment discount rate(RADR) of project finance. In the area of risk assessment of project finance, IRAM focuses not only on the financial condition but also on the whole domain of project risks. So the first step is to re-identify the risk attributes and sub-attributes by fuzzy clustering. The second step is to establish an integrated risk index by two-dimensional fuzzy set operations. The last step uses group decision method to develop a risk premium proxy, and then find out the RADR.
The main purpose of the second part of IRAM is to analyze the self-liquidation of
BOT project. This model utilizes RADR to develop a base case. Then we consider the government subsidiary policy and project company’s real options to discuss the effectiveness of these two policies by using net present value (NPV) and expanded net present value( expanded NPV) analysis.
Finally, we verify the IRAM model by the case study of Taiwan High Speed Rail
BOT program. The validity and reliability of integrated risk assessment model has past the test. On the verification of the integrated risk analysis model, the risk premium of base case is 6%, and the risk-free discount rate for the long term T-Bond is 6.52%, then the weighted average cost of capital(WACC) of base case is 11.97%. Generally, the pay off of BOT project can not cover the costs invested, which means the BOT project is not fully self-liquidated. But the coverage is gradually improved during the implementation of government subsidiary policy and project company’s flexibility policy. The case study has proved IRAM is effective. Generally speaking, there are three main contributions of this research: the establishment of an integrated risk assessment and analysis model, an expanded application of Capital Asset Pricing Model and empirical research results of real options.