The Development Center for Finance successfully held its annual Project Finance Seminar on October 8, 15, and 22, 2022 via Zoom. It was attended by fifty-two (52) participants, which included accountants, bankers, entrepreneurs, and lawyers.

The morning session of Day 1 of the seminar was handled by Dr. Arthur S. Cayanan, a professor from the Cesar E.A. Virata School of Business (UPVSB). The participants were able to distinguish between project finance and corporate finance and learned about capital budgeting concepts and techniques.

Assistant Professor Diogenes C. Dy from UPVSB took over the afternoon session of Day 1. The participants gained an understanding of cost of capital and capital structure.

Mr. Lawrence Velasco, a former Director of the Project Development Services of the Public-Private Partnership Center of the Philippines, was the key resource speaker for Day 2 and Day 3. His extensive experience in project finance enabled him to explain and demonstrate project finance in action to the seminar participants.

On Day 2, Mr. Velasco formally introduced the participants to the nitty-gritty of Project Finance, such as the common features of project finance, its similarities and differences with traditional corporate finance, different players in a project finance transaction, and risk identification, allocation, and management.

On Day 3, Mr. Velasco explained and showed the various techniques and tools in the de-risking of project finance transactions. He also shared the various sources of financing for project finance transactions. As a culminating activity, the participants went over a Project Finance case to apply concepts learned from the past three (3) sessions.

The following are feedback from some participants about the seminar:

“Complete mastery of topic. Can easily connect to attendee his thoughts, explains very well. He explains things in informal / conversational language – which is very effective in making concepts easy to understand. Students do not get lost in the jargon or get bored with textbook language. Will be interested to attend finance related seminars conducted by Mr. Cayanan.”

“Just want to say that, normally, it wouldn’t be so appealing to have someone who is not so adept at MS Excel discuss examples using the software, but in Sir Art’s case, I didn’t really mind. He focused more on making the class understand the concept for the computation, so he was still able to teach effectively despite his limitations.”

“Sir Don exhibited a good command of what he taught, and I especially appreciate the method for computing the cost of equity using CAPM, which would be very useful in my line of work.”

“Sir Dy has mastery of the topic discussed. Answered all clarifications with basis to attendees’ satisfaction. Very patient to attendee’s clarification points. Explained how to compute cost of capital and capital structure well especially to those like me who don’t have an established financial background.”

“Our resource speaker Sir Lawrence has full knowledge of the topic. Answers to clarifications were experience-based. Explained complex terms in the most simple manner which a non-technical person can understand.”

“Sir Velasco made concepts easy to understand using real and current examples. Made good use of visuals to emphasize points and explain process flows. I’ve taken several in person and virtual short courses and his is probably the best, most easily understandable and interesting one I’ve attended.”

“The slides and manner of presentation of Sir Lawrence made it easier for me to understand the subject matter. The case study was a big help as well. The content is so useful for my professional needs. Thank you very much”