Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Sovereign Wealth Funds: Discussion

Mr. Nick Ashmore:

What we are looking for is situations where we can be additional so we can help things to happen that would not happen otherwise. With ERDF funding, or in some cases, URDF funding, it is a question of whether we can find a local authority that has access to those funds but can expend those funds in an overall scheme or transaction where we can make a commercial investment in part of the programme. That might be an equity investment in a company or it might be a debt into a development for a new office or commercial building, or an industrial building for that matter. In terms of the money we deploy and the risks we are taking, and it might be senior debt, mezzanine or equity, each of those gets more expensive the more risk one is taking. We benchmark that price against other market transactions and what other people would charge if they were completely commercial, non-Government, private investors. We have to make sure we are pricing at the same level that they are. Often the difference is that we have a longer time horizon than they do. We can invest out to 25 years; they might be limited to ten or 15 years. We can fill that gap and do stuff that is additional but we would charge the same amount as they would charge if they were able to go to 25 years. That is how we think about how we price the investments and the funding that we provide. It is not cheap. It is certainly not as cheap as Government funding or ERDF funding. If one can blend grant-supported or Government funding with commercial funding in a broader transaction, one can make larger things happen that would not otherwise happen. Does that address the question?

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