Many institutional investors have grown more comfortable with the risk/return attributes of newly constructed infrastructure; other investors, not so much. Operating brownfield investments will always be the core of institutional infrastructure portfolios. But many infrastructure managers are frustrated by some basic misunderstanding — and mispricing — of certain greenfield risk. 

In 2015 a newly expanded Panama Canal, with deeper and wider navigational channels and a third set of larger locks, will be put into service. This long-anticipated event, as simple as it might sound, has been characterized as everything from a game changer to a near-term nonevent for industrial real estate markets.

John Schmidt is a partner with Chicago-based law firm Mayer Brown. He was counsel to the City of Chicago in the privatization of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge and represented the State of Indiana in the privatization of the Indiana Toll Road. Schmidt now represents states and local government entities in a variety of other privatization initiatives, including the City of Chicago’s proposed privatization of Midway Airport and the recently completed Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (LMM) privatization transaction. Institutional Investing in Infrastructure senior editor Drew Campbell spoke with Schmidt about the recent $2.6 billion public-private partnership of the LMM Airport.