Announcing its annual results for 2017, the fund’s chairman David MacLellan said the board “continues to believe that there is an important role for private sector investors in the provision of infrastructure assets and in the benefits of P3 in terms of whole-life cost savings and risk transfer”.
Adding that he is proud of the services JLIF provides, he said: “We regularly receive positive comment from end-users and staff around the quality of the facilities made available for their use.”
However, the report highlighted political issues in the UK, and the recent attacks on the PFI model, as potential risks for the future, while it pointed to Europe and North America as offering “the greatest opportunity in the short to medium term”.
The results revealed pre-tax profits of £99m ($140m), down from £160m ($226) the previous year – although JLIF said that 2016’s results had been boosted by “several exceptional gains from exchange rate movements, changes in discount rates and asset disposals”. Net assets reached £1.23bn ($1.73bn), up from £1.08bn ($1.52) in 2016.
JLIF is the latest company to suggest that future investment opportunities for P3 deals will come from North America and Europe, as opposed to the UK. Balfour Beatty recently said it expects most of its new P3 investments to come from the US in the years ahead.