What bid advisory is for
A developer bidding into a public tender has to win at a price it can finance and deliver. Those two constraints pull against each other, and the bid that clears the evaluation threshold by the widest margin is often the one that cannot reach financial close eighteen months later.
Our work sits on the private side of the table. We build the bid case, test it against what lenders will actually fund, and identify where the authority’s draft risk allocation will need to be challenged during clarifications rather than after award.
Selected experience
- 125 km road PPP, Saudi Arabia, circa $3.5bn, covering financial modelling, lender market sounding, term sheet negotiation and transaction management for the bid
- 20 MW thermal with 20 MWp solar and 14 MWh storage, Sierra Leone, procurement strategy testing EPC delivery against an IPP structure
- CCGT development, Togo, tariff determination and PPA negotiation
- Thermal generation bids across Africa, 30 MW to 400 MW on LNG, HFO and diesel, financial modelling and financing structure advisory for a contracting group
Reading the tender
The risk allocation in the authority’s draft documents sets the boundary of what can be financed. We work through the draft concession or PPA against the positions lenders have accepted on comparable schemes, and separate the terms that are genuinely fixed from those the authority will move during clarifications. Raising a point through the clarification process costs nothing. Raising it after preferred bidder appointment costs leverage.
Bid model and price submission
The bid financial model is built to the FAST Standard, to which GIA is a signatory, and structured from the outset for the lender due diligence that follows award. Gearing, cover ratios, tenor, refinancing assumptions and the equity return the sponsor is prepared to accept all feed the submitted price, and each needs to survive a lender reading it six months later.
Lender sounding before submission
We approach commercial banks, development finance institutions and export credit agencies before the bid goes in, so the financing assumptions behind the price reflect real appetite on tenor, currency and cover rather than a desk assumption. Where a term sheet can be secured pre-bid, it strengthens the submission on the financing criteria most authorities score.
Consortium and subcontract pricing
We support consortium formation, the commercial terms between members, and the interface between EPC and O&M pricing and the bid model. Back-to-back risk transfer that looks complete in the bid documents frequently contains gaps that lenders find during due diligence, and we test for those before submission.
Specialist and local advisers
Technical design, traffic or demand forecasting, geotechnical assessment and environmental studies are delivered by appointed specialists selected for the asset class and the jurisdiction. We scope their work to the tender timetable and the evaluation criteria.
Local counsel is engaged in-country from the outset. Qualification requirements, local content rules, tax treatment, land and right of way processes and the authority’s own precedent behaviour are jurisdiction-specific, and a bid that misreads any of them can be disqualified on compliance before the commercial offer is opened.
Award to financial close
Preferred bidder status starts the harder part. We support documentation, lender due diligence, conditions precedent and the model audit process through to close, holding the financing structure the bid was priced on.
Bid advisory: common questions
When should a financial adviser join a bid team?
Before the bid strategy is set, and well before the model is built. The financing structure determines what price can be submitted, and joining after the commercial offer has been shaped leaves the adviser validating decisions rather than informing them.
Do you work for authorities as well as bidders?
Both, on separate mandates. Advising a procuring authority on structuring a tender and advising a bidder into that same tender are conflicting roles, and we do not hold both.
What most often stops a winning bid reaching close?
A financing assumption that no lender will underwrite at the price bid, and risk positions accepted during the tender that become unfundable once documented. Both are visible before submission if the model and the draft documents are tested against lender positions rather than against the sponsor’s preference.
