The Development Center for Finance successfully held its Project Finance Seminar on July 6, 13, and 20 (Saturdays), 2019, at the Cesar E.A. Virata School of Business (UP VSB), University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. A total of 47 participants attended the seminar, which included accountants and finance practitioners, engineers, and even lawyers.

Day 1 of the seminar was handled by former MWSS Chief Regulator and UP VSB Associate Professor, Dr. Joel Yu. He provided an overview on infrastructure investments, and discussed capital budgeting, cost of capital, and capital structure.

On the second day of the seminar, Manila Water Corporate Finance Chief and Former Public-Private Partnerships Center Director, Prof. Lawrence Velasco, delved into the heart of Project Finance. He started by clearly defining the differences between Corporate Finance and Project Finance, then proceeded to underscore the importance of risk identification and allocation by providing several examples.

On the third and last day, the morning session was handled by BDO Capital President and International Association of Financial Executives Institutes (IAFEI) Chairman, Mr. Eduardo Francisco. He discussed several sources of project financing and shared to the participants some of his first-hand experiences in project financing.

To cap off the seminar, Prof. Lawrence Velasco took over during the afternoon session to tackle a Project Finance case.

Some of the feedback from the participants were as follows:

“Very happy with the lecturers! They’re very knowledgeable and have very relevant insights.”

“The lecturer shared very useful information related to our Project Finance work in the bank. His approach is very good – practical and not too theoretical!”

“Very engaging with a lot of useful, practical, and real life applications shared with the class. It was a relaxed session but equally rich with learning and insights.”

“Excellent explanations – simplified the financial terms for non-quants. Applied the principles and theories to real life projects.”