Transaction advisory.

What transaction advisory covers

A public authority taking an infrastructure project to market has to decide what it is buying, what risk it is prepared to carry, and what it can afford over the concession life. Those decisions are made before a tender is issued, and they determine whether the process attracts credible bidders or a single compliant offer at a price nobody wants to defend.

Our work runs from structuring through to signature: deciding the delivery model, testing affordability, sounding the market before commitment, preparing tender documentation, evaluating bids on a consistent basis, and negotiating to financial close.

Choosing the delivery model

Concession, availability-based PPP, IPP, or conventional procurement with public funding: each moves risk and cost in different directions, and the right answer depends on what the authority can carry and what the market will price. We compare the options against affordability, the fiscal treatment of any guarantee or contingent liability, and the realistic depth of bidder interest.

Affordability and value for money

We model the whole-life cost to the authority, including availability payments, subsidy requirement, tariff impact on end users and the contingent exposure created by guarantees and termination provisions. Where the numbers do not work, saying so before a tender is issued protects the authority from a process that cannot conclude.

Market sounding before commitment

Sponsors, contractors and lenders tell you what they will and will not accept if you ask before the documents are final. We run structured soundings and translate the responses into changes to the risk allocation, the qualification criteria and the timetable. A tender built without this routinely returns fewer bids at worse prices than the authority expected.

Tender documentation and evaluation

We support preparation of the RFQ and RFP, the draft project agreement, the financial submission templates and the evaluation methodology. Evaluation criteria are set so that bids can be compared on a common basis, with the financial submission structured to prevent a bidder winning on assumptions it will not be held to after award.

Financial modelling and the public sector comparator

Models are built to the FAST Standard, to which GIA is a signatory, with inputs, calculations and outputs separated and nothing hard-coded inside formulas. That matters more on the public side than the private, because an authority’s model is examined by ministries of finance, auditors and lenders, each arriving with different questions and none of them willing to rebuild it.

Specialist technical advisers

Demand and traffic forecasting, geotechnical investigation, hydrology, marine survey and process engineering each require specialists who have done that specific work in that specific environment. We identify what the project needs, scope their work to the procurement timetable, run the selection and manage the interfaces, so that technical outputs arrive in a form the financial model and the tender documents can actually use.

Local legal and regulatory support

Procurement law, concession frameworks, land acquisition, tax treatment, foreign exchange rules and local content requirements are jurisdiction-specific and often contested. International counsel structures the transaction. Local counsel establishes how the framework has been applied in practice, which approvals bind and which are advisory, and how long each step has historically taken. We engage both, in-country and early, because consent timetables usually set the procurement schedule.

Negotiation and close

We support clarification rounds, bid evaluation, preferred bidder negotiation, lender due diligence and conditions precedent through to financial close, holding the risk allocation the tender was built on.

Transaction advisory: common questions

At what point should an authority appoint a transaction adviser?

Before the delivery model is chosen. The structuring decision determines the tender, the risk allocation and the affordability envelope, and appointing an adviser after it has been made limits them to executing a decision they were not able to test.

Do you advise bidders on the same tenders?

No. Advising a procuring authority and advising a bidder into that tender are conflicting roles. We hold one or the other on any given transaction.

What most often causes a tender to fail?

Risk allocation the market will not accept, an affordability position that was never tested, and a timetable built around political milestones rather than consent processes. Each is visible during market sounding, which is why it belongs before the documents are finalised.

Do you carry out the technical and environmental studies?

No. Those are delivered by appointed specialists selected for the asset class and jurisdiction. We scope their work, run the selection and translate their findings into the commercial case and the tender documents.

Related expertise

• Project structuring
• Bid advisory
• Procurement advisory
• Financial modelling
• Feasibility studies