Purpose

Increased economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has given rise to increased demand for port development. Given the often scarce availability of national public funding, port institutional reform programmes have been implemented to pave the way for the inclusion of external port investors. Notwithstanding this fact, some sub-Saharan African Governments remain institutionally locked into the notion that state-owned enterprises remain an appropriate vehicle for port terminal operations. This, despite the fact that terminal operational concessions globally and within the continent of Africa are increasingly being managed by global terminal operators. Given this context, this study aims to evaluate different port valuation and funding strategies. Two research questions form the core of this research: what is the financial value of a concession? What is the most cost advantageous funding strategy? The methodology is applied to the development of a two-berth container terminal in SSA.

Design/methodology/approach

After reviewing a range of financial valuation and funding techniques, the study presents valuation and funding model applicability-fit tests. Thereafter, a suitable valuation technique is selected and applied to the case study providing a concession valuation. Different funding strategies are applied to the valuation model to determine the cost implications of each funding instrument given the local context and institutional constraints applicable to SSA. Finally, the study discusses the significance of the results to potential SSA port investors by highlighting the impact of each funding approach on key financial metrics.

Findings

The study presents a range of financial investment appraisal results for the case study concession in consideration of four specific funding strategies. The highest concession valuation could be attributed to a higher debt ratio as a principal funding strategy. In addition, this funding approach (100% debt) realised the shortest payback period and the highest internal rate of return values. The authors, however, maintain that the optimal funding strategy for a concession depends ultimately on the financial goals of the investor.

Originality/value

This research makes a contribution to the existing literature on port finance and development by presenting a structured approach to the evaluation of the valuation and funding techniques, which can be used in terminal development subject to the specific local context and institutional constraints (in this case applicable to SSA). The study provides practical insight into the potential cost of the considered terminal concession for private or public sector participants and a view of the most cost advantageous funding strategy available for interested investors.

中文翻译：

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港口融资策略的估值方法及其在撒哈拉以南非洲的集装箱码头特许经营中的应用

目的

撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）经济活动的增加导致对港口发展的需求增加。鉴于国家公共资金的经常匮乏，已经实施了港口机构改革计划，为包容外部港口投资者铺平了道路。尽管如此，一些撒哈拉以南非洲国家政府仍然在体制上陷入一种观念，即国有企业仍然是港口码头业务的合适工具。尽管事实上，全球范围内和非洲大陆范围内的终端运营特许权正越来越多地由全球终端运营商进行管理。在这种情况下，本研究旨在评估不同的港口估值和资金策略。两个研究问题构成了本研究的核心：特许权的财务价值是多少？什么是最具成本优势的筹资策略？该方法适用于SSA中的两个泊位集装箱码头的开发。

设计/方法/方法

在回顾了一系列财务评估和融资技术之后，该研究提出了评估和融资模型适用性适合性测试。此后，选择合适的评估技术并将其应用于提供特许权评估的案例研究。鉴于当地情况和适用于SSA的机构限制，对估值模型采用了不同的筹资策略，以确定每种筹资工具的成本影响。最后，该研究通过强调每种融资方式对关键财务指标的影响，讨论了结果对潜在的SSA港口投资者的重要性。

发现

该研究提出了针对案例研究特许权的一系列金融投资评估结果，其中考虑了四种特定的筹资策略。最高的特许权估值可以归因于较高的债务比率作为主要的融资策略。此外，这种融资方式（100％的债务）实现了最短的投资回收期和最高的内部收益率。但是，作者坚持认为，让步的最佳融资策略最终取决于投资者的财务目标。

创意/价值

这项研究通过提出一种评估估值和融资技术的结构化方法，对现有的港口金融与发展文献做出了贡献，该方法可用于码头开发，但要视当地的具体情况和机构限制而定（在这种情况下适用）到SSA）。这项研究提供了对私营或公共部门参与者考虑的最终优惠的潜在成本的实用见解，以及对感兴趣的投资者可用的最具成本优势的融资策略的观点。