The Challenge: A public health authority required a new specialised care facility to replace ageing infrastructure that was no longer fit for purpose. The project capital requirement exceeded the authority’s direct borrowing capacity, necessitating a PPP. However, the authority had limited internal experience with private finance procurement. They needed a partner to structure a transaction that would attract competitive private investment while strictly protecting the public interest and ensuring clinical services would not be disrupted during the transition.

How Sartori Helped: Sartori was appointed as the lead commercial and transaction advisor. We worked with the authority to define a robust output specification that focused on performance outcomes rather than prescriptive inputs. Our team structured a “Design-Build-Finance-Maintain” contract that transferred construction and long-term maintenance risk to the private partner. We managed the entire competitive dialogue process, evaluating bids on price and the resilience of the proposed facility management model. Crucially, we introduced a flexible payment mechanism that allowed the authority to penalise the operator for unavailability of critical clinical zones, ensuring operational standards remained the priority.

The Result: The project reached financial close three months ahead of the initial schedule, securing a fixed-price contract that was 12% below the public sector comparator. The successful consortium has commenced construction, with the risk of cost overruns fully transferred to the private sector. The authority now possesses a clear, enforceable contract that guarantees facility standards for the next 25 years, allowing their internal teams to focus entirely on clinical care rather than building maintenance.