Project finance is the financing technique used to fund the long-term development of infrastructure and other construction projects. The key difference compared to traditional debt or equity financing is that project financing creates a project-specific subsidiary and uses a non-recourse or limited recourse financial structure, which keeps project costs off the parent company’s balance sheet. This is critically important in industries such as energy or real estate, where projects are capital-intensive and may accrue years of interest expenses before cash flows begin to be generated from operations.

Because it deals with long-lived assets with long construction timelines, project financing requires rigorous financial modeling to estimate future revenues, as well as special attention given to the time value of money given the importance of interest and debt service. Careful risk analysis must also be undertaken - a particularly challenging task given the fact that project lifecycles may span decades. Finally, the capital budgeting process uses techniques such as net present value (NPV) or project internal rate of return (IRR) to estimate the overall profitability of the project over time and compare it to other potential uses of capital.

Project finance is a core financing tool in many private sector industries such as oil and gas and commercial real estate, as well as government infrastructure development projects and the investment banks and insurance funds that may advise or invest in them. Controllers, treasurers, chief financial officers (CFOs), government department heads, and other financial manager roles at these organizations thus require expertise in project finance, including the ability to evaluate various financing strategies and compare different uses of capital.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, financial managers earn a median annual salary of $129,890 per year. These high-paying positions typically require at least a bachelor’s degree and 5 years or more of experience as an accountant or financial analyst, although some organizations prefer to hire candidates with a master’s degree in these areas.

Certainly. Coursera offers a wide range of online courses and Specializations in business and finance, including selections on project finance and industry-specific courses such as oil and gas or construction financing. These courses are offered in partnership with top-ranked universities from around the world, including Columbia University, Duke University, Università Bocconi, and the University of Leeds. This combination of remote learning’s flexibility and lower tuition costs with a high-quality education has helped to make Coursera the world’s leading online learning platform, and a great choice for students as well as mid-career professionals.