By: Staff Writer
April 2, 2021
An international financier with extensive experience in Caribbean operations said that technology has “accelerated” and is the next “big development” for the region.
Andre Wright, executive vice president of Standard International Group, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that technology is going to be the next infrastructural opportunity for investors for the foreseeable future.
Mr Wright said: “In the 80s, we built airports in the 90s we built cruise ports. The big development is going to come in the telecom/broadband area.
He added: “The technology has accelerated due to COVID-19. It’s here to stay, you see it in almost every framework and if the technology infrastructure is not in place along with a clean environment- so solid waste is very important- I believe countries are going to have a challenge over the next 5 to 10 years.
“While I believe in clean water and clean air, but I believe the next progressive step for the region will be in the broadband, high speed, high quality, but sovereign protected data,” Mr Wright said.
Speaking about the investment potential for the region over the next 10 years, Mr Wright explained that with regard to assessing the potential for the Caribbean market there are certain factors government needs to look at in exploiting the market potential for telecom growth. He said: “So what is your middle mile look like? How much bandwidth is in the middle mile? And then what does your last mile look like? And are you handing out licenses like candy canes at Christmas time where everyone and their cousin has a license or have you protected those licenses and making sure that they reach all areas in the community? “
For 30 years Mr Wright has been involved in scores of infrastructural project financing initiatives around the Caribbean through SIG. He has done work in St Croix, St Maarten, The Bahamas and Curacao.
Mr Wright said what he focuses on is, “mainly infrastructure projects that are the same throughout the Caribbean. Airport, cruise terminals, power plants, wastewater, solid waste and things like that. I’ve been doing this for 30 years.”
“I spent 10 years in Wall Street at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and there I did several billion dollars of projects across a wide variety of infrastructure projects for state and local governments.
“So, in the US as municipal finance, I basically made that a business after those 10 years and went private on my own and made that a business for the Caribbean.
SIG is a firm that specialises in financial advisory services that are built around comprehensive financial and credit analysis, local knowledge and industry expertise with a focus on creating transformative solutions and successful outcomes. SIG creates and shares opportunities with global investors, delivers debt and equity capital to sovereign and municipal governments and corporations, all while emphasizing the importance of positive results on a local level.
“So we do the commercialization which means a lot of preliminary due diligence,’ said Mr Wright. He added: “Because the large institutional investors and investment banks do not want to spend the time trying to understand the market trying to understand the project and dealing with the all of the nuances that you may have to deal with in some jurisdictions. So what we do is we insulate that, or do that work upfront, prepare the structure the deal from both a technical legal and preliminary legal and financial standpoint. And then we’re we’ll make and get it rated as well.”