Something of a paradox exists at the heart of the social infrastructure market. Demand for investment has ballooned to create a multi-trillion-euro-size funding gap across Europe and the United States, leading to a demand that governments and private capital combined cannot meet. Such is the scale of global demand that institutional investors have constructed investment strategies around the aligned interests of social assets and required investor returns. But, in certain markets, the public-private partnership (P3) model is starting to look under strain, with deal flow failing to match up to the hyperbole of public political statements, unequally limiting global deal flow.

As is often the case, things are not quite what they might seem. Social infrastructure assets — such as hospitals and healthcare facilities, schools, courts, affordable housing, student accommodation, retirement and nursing homes — are in ever greater demand in Western markets, driven by demographics a