Financial and insurance services

Description

In July 2018 the LCRCA approved its strategic investment fund strategy (SIF). The investment strategy has been drafted to guide the LCRCA's investment actives for the next 12-18 months. The investment strategy applies to projects in the local transport, land and property, infrastructure, low carbon culture, business support and innovation, and skills employment sectors. Merseytravel on behalf of the LCRCA are looking to set up a framework for the following services a detailed in Section 11.2 lots below: — economic appraisal, — land, property and housing, — corporate and project finance, — legal services. Please note that suppliers can apply to more that one lot. As the investment team prepares projects for each stage of the investment process – from outline to concept (SOC) to interim (OBC) to final (FBC) – it will require increasingly comprehensive economic appraisal support. This is the role of the economic appraiser. Please note that, in contrast to the previous functioning of the SIF, the economic appraiser will not routinely consider more than the strategic and economic cases of the regular 5 business case model adopted by HM Government. The investment team will typically assume full responsibility for the commercial, financial and management cases. The requirements of the property and valuations consultant may include. — market analysis in respect of property development and funding opportunities, including inter alia: —— supply and demand analysis, —— features, trends and components of demand, —— impact of macroeconomic events and trends, —— impact of market developments and trends, —— competitive position of LCR (or other spatial area) and/or the proposition considered, and —— analysis of market participants and key features of the market. For projects involving construction (whether new build, redevelopment or refurbishment), the combined authority may require professional construction advice in respect of the approach, cost and timescales of such construction in order to inform decision making processes. This may include the review and commentary on investee and/or contractor’s proposals, for instance to identify areas of risk and uncertainty and how these are being managed. In respect of projects in construction, professional advice may be required to ensure the combined authority’s interest are being maintained (e.g. progress reporting, commentary on design variations, review of achievement of construction milestones). As set out in the SIF investment strategy, the combined authority anticipates making equity and debt investments (in addition to the historic grant approach) into projects which support the combined authority growth strategy. It will also potentially provide guarantees, first loss instruments and other forms of financial support. The combined authority therefore wishes to have available corporate finance advisors to support this process who can provide professional advice and due diligence and support the structuring, and negotiation of potential investments. The combined authority directly employs a highly experienced team of investment professionals. However it is recognised that it may not have the resource either in respect of capacity and skills to manage all investment propositions. The combined authority therefore wishes to have available potential skills and resources to support the investment team as may be required.