BOT REAL OPTION VALUATION UNDER PERFORMANCE BONDING

Build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects are privatized infrastructure undertakings that face long-term investment risks and uncertainties. To ensure these projects can be completed on time and operated according to performance specifications, governments usually require BOT concessionaires to furnish performance bonds as a security. However, in order to attract investment, governments often provide abandonment rights for concessionaires to deal with investment risks and uncertainties. In the context of real options, these abandonment rights will increase project value, but the furnish of performance bonds will reduce this value. Currently in the BOT context, there is no real option model that can handle explicitly the impact of performance bonds on project value. In this paper, a real option valuation model is derived to deal with this important issue. The Taiwan high-speed rail project is used as a case study to show the applicability of the proposed model.