Kalistani Major History

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Minister for Infrastructure and Transport kicks off capital campaign for Ananto Rail
Public-Private Partnership aims to raise ₭127 Billion from the Private Sector
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
January 7, 5461


Minister Allen delivers speech before Blue Chip Investors at Kalsie Last Thursday

The Minister for Infrastructure, Xena Allen, delivered a key note speech to kick off the year long Capital Campaign aimed at raising more than ₭125 Billion from the Private Sector to help finance the planned and long awaited Ananto Rail Maglev Infrastructure project. "We are ready to go in the National Government," said Allen. We have matching funds already laid out for this project and now we need the Private Sector to step up and do their job to contribute to the National Rail System." The Minister's speech was delivered in the Kalsie, before about 150 representatives of blue chip companies, who gave her a cordial but tepid response.

"There is a reason that the investment community hasn't backed the Ananto Rail system in more than 100 years," said one investor, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Its because there's just not a lot of return on investment. We have more than 100 years of data on this subject looking at Kalistan, and the project while profitable, and provides private actors who are still in the pool a trickle of regular returns, that money can be used else where that can more aggressively generate profit for shareholders. Unless the Private Sector gets a majority of the votes on the governing boards of the various Duchy rail companies, we will never be able to make that investment more attractive than invseting in something like the Kalsie, where we can see 5,6,7 percent on the safest investments. 1 percent annual return just isn't that attractive to me."

Other investors, while saying that high speed maglev trains would be a great thing for tourism and commerce in Ananto, also said the problem is the public majority stake in the system. "We seem to be blessed with directors on the public side who are more concerned with giving freeloaders a ride," said Marcus Turner, who does purchasing for SLW ltd. "The State seems to believe that good political sense also makes good ecconomic sense when every Kalistani knows that those two interests tend to be diametrically opposed. I understand that they need to serve their constituents, but then they shouldn't wonder why a company who is in business specifically to make money doesn't just join in those money pits. That would be bad for business, especially at the margins we already have to operate at."

Other investors were more optimistic about the opportunity to invest, including Daphne Rodriguez, who is CFO for Yoshimi Entertainment, a major casino owner in Yoshimi, Suldanor. "The lack of modern tourism infrastructure in Ananto is what has dissuaded our company from expanding operations to the Island. We had a deal in the works to build a new casino resort in Luxon, and it fell through because the numbers didn't add up: we didn't have a major air or rail terminal there, and it is far too expensive to build around Kaliburg, so the building of a MagLev rail system on Ananto will be the thing we need to go through with our expansion. We will benefit from a lot of the follow on effects that the MagLev will bring, and that will put our calculations, even with this investment, into the black. We will be stupid not to help get this project off the ground." Several other investors felt the same and believe that they can make a big impact in this campaign.

"We all know people who aren't here who can contribute," said Mica Westerburg, of Ananto Finance. "An investment consortium might be a solution to uncertainty, and address the need for such a large sum of capital as well. We will be in talks with companies and sources of investment capital that we work with this year to found an investment group that can bundle lots of small donations and ensure people make their money back on the private side."

Government watchers give the public private partnership a 50-50 chance of succeeding but the move at least shows that the Government is interested in taking the initial steps to finally get maglev development in Ananto off the ground, which is something that has promised by the Institutionalists for decades now. We will track this story over the coming year.