Impacts of Construction Events on the Project Equity Value of the Channel Tunnel Project

With the growing strains on public resources, many governments in recent years have turned to the private sector for infrastructure project financing. The special purpose vehicles (SPVs) taking such project usually has a 2 stage business model: a construction stage followed by an operating stage. However, the project risk in stage 1 is very high, and in most cases, the impacts of specific construction events on project risk and capital cost are unobservable due to lack of informational transparency. Eurotunnel (the Channel Tunnel project) is unique in that the share price data for the entire construction period is publicly available. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the measurement and assessment of project risk by providing empirical data on the impact of various events that occur during the construction phase of the project finance company's life. Using the event study methodology, our study shows that: (1) during the construction stage, efforts to better manage the interests and incentives of contractors produce more significant positive impact from investors than efforts for cost containment; (2) during the construction stage, meeting the project deadline is a higher investor priority than containing construction cost; and (3) once the construction phase is complete, the investors' priority then becomes the overall cost and the impact of construction events on the expected returns from investment. Finally, the level of risk and the potential conflicts of interest that arise during the construction phase of a mega infrastructure project are such that turning to IPOs to provide equity capital may not be appropriate.