Advisory Board 2024

As announced during the last board meeting, we are now producing asset valuation data and tools not only for infrastructure equity and debt but also for all kinds of private companies, with a coverage of 1.3M firms in more than 100 countries, as well as climate risk data for thousands of infrastructure assets.

With this work, we continue to apply our core scientific approach, with the constant objective to create robust valuation and risk models for private markets and to calibrate them with the best and more relevant data. The value of this work springs from its contribution to helping asset owners and managers invest transparently in private asset classes.

In line with EDHEC’s strategic plan, we aim to be normative. This includes the creation of classification standards that are relevant to asset pricing, from the familiar TICCS to PECCS (which was introduced to the board last year) and the use of science-driven quantitative research that pushes the boundaries of current practices in private investment. It also includes the development of asset rating methodologies that leverage the power of model-based results to reach a high-level of rating coverage. as well as an approach to easily integrate contributed data in these ratings in a standardized manner.

In June, we will seek the comments and the recommendations of board members on the following topics:

(morning session)

• Valuation practices in the private asset investment sector and their required evolution, particularly the frequent use of the CAPM and the alternatives available to improve the robustness of fair value reporting (a powerful case being the Thames Water fiasco).
• The current use of comparables in the industry and the opportunity to build robust and granular valuation starting points for both investment and reporting purposes. As well as the development of tools allowing the integration of model-based data directly into an investment process to customize valuations and benchmarking considering current industry practices.

(afternoon session)

• The development of a mapping of alignment and resilience strategies and technologies to individual assets and assess the effectiveness, cost and credibility of current climate adaptation and decarbonization plans.
• The creation of climate risk ratings for infrastructure assets that capture their current exposure to risk (potential risk rating) and their expected loss given climate scenarios (effective risk rating) using the technology created at EDHEC to

These strategic topics determine the future work and impact of the research institute and their discussion with the board will be very valuable to ensure a perfect fit with but also a significant improvement of private market investment practices.

The Board meeting will take place over two sessions with a lunch break and is being organised at a centrally-located, international hotel in Boston, Mass.