After the IMF foreign exchange risk, various types of advanced real estate financial techniques have been introduced in which finance and real estate are connected. In such circumstances, the local real estate policy has gone through many changes acco...
After the IMF foreign exchange risk, various types of advanced real estate financial techniques have been introduced in which finance and real estate are connected. In such circumstances, the local real estate policy has gone through many changes according to whether which party grasps the political power. Especially, in the real estate development market, financial institutions are forced to limit their lending on account of the real estate regulation policy, raw material price rise, crisis atmosphere for interest rate increase, and decrease of general credence in Korean economy. In addition, as constructors focus more exclusively on safe projects, real estate developers come to suffer from financing. Project Financing (PF) introduced in such circumstances, one of the advanced real estate financial techniques started to come into the limelight as a way for the real estate developers to finance. PF refers to a financial technique by which financing and repayment are carried out based on a certain project’s feasibility, that is, the future cash flow anticipated. However, in the real estate development projects, lately PF lending by financial institutions has been dramatically increased, and real estate price has declined. Therefore, several problems on PF are pointed out such as the developers or constructors of dishonor and the default rate increase in PF lending.
Accordingly, this study attempts to grope for risk management and activating methods for PF by analyzing the present status and actual cases of it.
For the case study, cases like the Second Belt Express Way construction project of Gwangju, theme shopping mall construction project of Dongbaek in Yongin, An airport combined heat & power plant project international incheon, and Woolim e-Biz Center apartment-type factory construction project were used.
As management methods for separate risks of PF, this study found methods such as futures, options, or swaps for the economic risks like interest rate or exchange rate change. Moreover, it chose insurances or warranties including the Contractors’ All Risks Insurance, Erection All Risks Insurance, engineer equipment performance warranty, or general warranty as management methods for the construction completion risk or operational risk.
In addition, for the market risk that a project can be short of profit due to the uncertainty of the market condition, it selected methods such as long-term sourcing agreement conclusion for raw material or project results. And for the projects with the government’s intervention, it is important to make agreements with the government beforehand on the target project selection, project developer designation, rental fee and free use term decision, subsidy support, request to the government for the least letter of comfort, timely executability check, and compensation range for damages and indemnity for the government’s nonfulfillment or unilateral cancellation of the agreements.
Finally, when the project’s operational process or its results affect national health or environment negatively, limits on authorization or nearby residents’ protests may cause some risks like project discontinuation; thus, it is also necessary to perform systematic examination on environmental risks, get residents’ agreement through public hearings, or discuss and consult with the environmental organizations of the region in question.
Moreover, since financial investors’ active participation is required to activate PF, investors’ loan should be preserved through methods such as various contracts, financial agreements, securities, and insurances.
It is also needed to develop methods that integrate advanced real estate financial techniques with PF like real estate funds or development REITs, reform the tax laws for the reduction or exemption of the corporation tax, acquisition tax, or registration tax imposed to project companies, and revise the bank laws to enlarge the investment scale of financial institutions.
This study suggests risk management and activating methods for PF as stated above.