Dire needs – lousy returns

The collapse of the main bridge crossing Baltimore’s outer harbour after a large container ship had crashed into it showed that infrastructure matters and needs investment. As Bloomberg columnist John Authers rightly pointed out “Listed infrastructure, despite the painfully great demand for it, is evidently not delivering returns for shareholders” and “Getting big infrastructure built is difficult, particularly during the pandemic and its aftermath. The returns generally depend on good will from the public sector. If there are doubts over a government’s intentions, it will chill the chances of investment.”. In the meantime, equity investors did not see any return after dividends by investing into infrastructure stocks over the last 15 years. That needs to change in order to attract new capital.