In this issue

Whole-life costing

Winning concessions – often as part of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) deal – requires forecasting discipline and rigour. Often, PPP deals involve multi-decade long concessions and a deeper level of political and administrative will. Unfortunately, there is a mismatch between political attention spans and the multi-decade whole-life timeframes of infrastructure projects. The larger and more high profile the project, the more applicable this becomes.

Sri Lanka is tendering for a large new electricity generating power station, which is the subject of our cover story. For PPPs like this to be successful, both the specifications and the project risks must be clear. However, in the case of the proposed power plant, neither is.

When the whole-life costing (life of the asset) is manipulated and locked into a binding PPP, the impact is disastrous for the population. It has recently become known how a large power plant Lanka Transformers built in 2010 has passed the risks to the government and captured rewards for private sector investors. In this case, 98% of the repayment risk is pinned on the government, with the PPP receiving guaranteed payments of up to 67% higher than market rates of return, most of which is channeled to the unscrupulous private capital providers.
Our cover story, “A dark tale of private money in electricity,” starts on page 44.

Echelon Magazine Description:

Intelligent Storytelling

The one thing that will define the Echelon magazine will be the quality of the storytelling. Echelon,published monthly, will cover in depth Sri Lanka’s most successful businesses, examine their winning strategiesand profile their leaders in immersive stories. Great stories are also never limited to words, and our approach includes rich photography, bold graphics and leading edge design which together will make for a compelling read.

But business doesn’t start and end in a boardroom;it extends to the golf club greens, to international travel and to pursuits that blurthe lines between commercial venture and sheer passion. The Echelon team will present the best in business and lifestyle coverage that will appeal to an exclusive and affluent readership: an otherwise hard to reach demographic.

Content will be developed by one of the most experienced and proven teams of editors, financial journalists, photographers and designers in the country.This team has already raised the bar for powerful and expertly crafted business news. Shamindra Kulamannage, will lead the editorial team.

The reputation of Echelon is being built on the separation between editorial and advertising. However we are also looking for the most creative and impactful new formats that can be applied in our magazines, iPad app as well as website to help our clients reach our audience. We are flexible and creative and we will have a solution for every single advertiser who wants to reach our audience.

We are passionate about creative results and about working with our advertisers to help them create bespoke multi platform creative solutions with our in house creative team and of course our sales team.

Echelon will be a great place to show off the products and capabilities of our clients because they will be surrounded by an editorial product that is expertly crafted, full of integrity and intelligence.