



Mint Explainer | Why fund houses and private equity firms are eyeing greenfield BOT highway projects again
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Reworked concession terms, stronger traffic growth and falling yields on operational assets are nudging long-term capital back toward construction-linked road bets. After staying away from construction-risk projects for almost a decade, fund houses and private equity firms are re-evaluating greenfield build-operate-transfer (BOT) highway projects in India.
The shift follows proposed tweaks to concession agreements, improved traffic trends and yield compression in operational toll assets. Mint explains the changing landscape of investment patterns in greenfield infrastructure projects. BOT projects are those that private companies develop.
They operate projects such as highways for 20-30 years, recover their costs by collecting toll from users, and transfer ownership back to the government. This model exposes investors directly to construction risks, traffic risks and financing risks. From 2007 to 2014, BOT was the most popular way of awarding highway contracts.
The model accounted for 96% of all projects awarded in 2011-12. However, BOT later became synonymous with volatility and its share in total highway contracts awarded by the government fell steadily. After aggressive bidding and traffic shortfalls in the early 2010s, many BOT projects in India became stressed.
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