Victor Smith

Foster Wyatt is an independent project development and financing advisor to sponsors and developers carrying out major infrastructure projects in the UK and overseas. It is run by Victor Smith with two associates who have experience of providing strategic advice for the development of private sector projects, carrying out appraisals and feasibility studies, developing viable commercial structures, carrying out detailed risk and financial analyses, negotiating project finance packages and documentation, and project management. Current assignments include a PFI/PPP market analysis for an overseas group considering expanding in the UK market and working with Partnerships UK on public private partnerships. He is a regular presenter of specialist project finance courses with BPP Professional Education in the City of London and with other training groups in the UK and overseas.

Earlier Victor Smith developed a business plan for a leading medical research institute (including detailed appraisals of several alternative location projects), worked with a small multidisciplinary team advising Guangdong Province in China on introducing competition in electricity generation under an EU funded assignment, was the advisor for a light rail transport project group in the UK, and was project finance advisor to the City of Moscow developing strategies for introducing private sector participation in municipal infrastructure projects through a UK Government "Know How Fund" appointment. Foster Wyatt has also carried out feasibility studies on major power projects and schemes to expand port facilities in China for a UK engineering group and has acted as independent advisor to a UK water utility bidding for a major PFI water treatment project. During 1997 Victor Smith carried out the roles of financial advisor for the Spice Telecom cellphone project in India and for a major water project in Oman.

Earlier in the 1990s he had extensive front-line experience of lead arranging complex project financings for the Hub Power project in Pakistan, Teesside Power project in north east England and other independent power plants whilst head of project finance with a leading international bank in London. In the 1980s he formed and developed a project and export finance team at Banque Paribas in London, arranging export and project financings, particularly in West Africa and the Middle East.

Victor Smith completed an MBA at Cranfield in 1972 and is an Honorary Associate and visiting lecturer for post graduate courses and course director for the International Project Finance module of the Distance Learning MBA programme at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee. He trained with the leading UK construction group, John Laing, becoming a site manager and chartered builder in 1970. He has a first degree in construction engineering and management from the University of Brighton.