Managing a Portfolio of Public–Private Partnerships: Concessionaire Perspective

This study explored the public–private partnership (PPP) portfolio strategy of private infrastructure sponsors, as well as its execution. The goal was to determine to what extent the behavior of these companies is rational from an economic point of view, an issue unexplored by academic literature to the best of our knowledge. To achieve this goal, a theoretical framework was proposed, and the strategy and asset rotation of four private infrastructure groups between the years 2000 and 2017 were analyzed. The theoretical framework identified and analyzed the evolution over time of risks present in a PPP project. The theoretical findings, which recommend an alignment of the project life cycle with the country business cycle, are not corroborated by the empirical evidence. This suggests that infrastructure sponsors, contrary to their claim of divesting from mature assets, take into consideration other factors in their portfolio strategy.