IJGlobal has published its league tables for international infrastructure and energy finance identifying activity in the third quarter of 2023, which compares poorly to recent performance – leading to an anticipated slump year of activity.

The final quarter tends to be the most active, but it is unlikely performance will turn 2023 into anything but a sluggish year for deal activity and capital deployed.

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IJGlobal data for Q3 2023 reveal consistent performance when held against the corresponding period last year across the broader infrastructure finance category with $330 billion of closes, compared to $331.9 billion in Q3 2022.

For clarity, “infrastructure finance” is a catch-all category from the IJGlobal database that is designed to incorporate all private investment into infrastructure and energy, including primary finance, refinance and restructurings. It takes in all project finance, broader debt vehicles as well as all equity invested or lent across the global infra / energy sectors.

According to IJGlobal data – at the time of publication, but subject to change as more data become available – Q3 has been the least active quarter this year having been significantly outpaced by Q1 when $488 billion of deals closed, and Q2 with $377 billion. Deal flow is also considerably down for this quarter with 783 of closes, comparing poorly to 949 in Q2 and 937 in Q1.

The largest infra finance transaction to close this quarter was a project finance transaction – financing of the first phase of Rio Grande LNG in Texas. It has a full deal value of $18.4 billion and sees the JV of NextDecade, Global Infrastructure Partners, GIC, Mubadala and TotalEnergies secure loans of $12.3 billion alongside an equity contribution of $6.1 billion.

This mega transaction was followed at some distance by the next largest deals from the year to date, all of which came in at around the $11 billion mark. These were the January acquisition of 60% in National Grid Gas Transmission & Metering in the UK; and the acquisition in February of 51% in GD Towers (Germany/Austria) by DigitalBridge and Brookfield Asset Management.

On a global perspective, data from Q3 2023 show the second worst overall performance in recent times – since the start of 2021 – with the least amount of commercial debt deployed. Bond financing was down, but not completely outside the ballpark, equity deployment held its own – but did not impress – DFI lending was in the upper percentile, while deal count was the lowest since the start of 2021.

Poor performance in PPPs remains a continuing theme in IJGlobal data analysis and this quarter is no exception with only 8 deals closed across the world in primary finance this quarter.

This quarter’s PPP performance is overshadowed by recent quarters – Q3 2022 and Q3 2021 – which were spike years in recent times with 21 and 36 transactions making it to financial close, respectively. The last quarter (Q3 2023) shows a slump in value to the tune of 65% when compared to the same period last year.

Only 3 deals from Q3 make it into the table for top PPP transactions to have made it to financial close in 2023. Primary among these is the second largest deal to have closed (YTD) – Al Mirfa Seawater Nanofiltration Plant in the UAE, Project Wave. Valued at $2.2 billion and involving a debt package of $1.8 billion, this plant is part of a mega-project consisting 2 standalone seawater nanofiltration plants, pumping stations and 450km of new transmission pipelines.