Abstract:

There is a remarcable interest for developing smart- cities projects in emerging markets in the actual context of Industry 4.0 technologies (intelligent systems/ artificial intelligence, micro/ nano- robotics, advanced multispectral sensors, virtual/ augmemnted reality, internet of things, mobile 5G communication, cloud- computing, big-data analytics).

These projects are very interesting but the implementation should consifder the risks associated to the new technologies and the actual culture of innovation. The interest is to build cooperative partnerships between local authorities, entrepreneurs and the scientific (universities and research institutes) community capable to develop flexible dedicated solutions and strategies for finance the typical smart cities-projects in the actual context. The literature is more focused on the projects in advanced economies but only few references are dedicated for the projects of smart cities in emerging economies.

In this proposal we present an innovative framework for co- financing smart- cities projects adapted to emerging markets realities, based on a mix between municipal bonds, for local authorities and mezzanine finance for related companies. The interest of this contribution is to obtain synergies for better performance taking into account the cost of capital, leverage and risk profile, the adaptability of capital structure (the mix senior debt- mezzanine- equity reduce the cost of capital with impact on returns), the propensity for specialized investment funds participation (the rate of return is usually targeted based on current and deferred payments and exist is more flexible).
In order to obtain these results we will develop a methodology based on a AHP (Analiyhical Hierarcy Process- Saaty) analysis with data from three types of interviews with different cathegories of stakeholders like investment fund portfolio managers, entrepreneurs and investors (retail investors but also specialized investors).
The educational benefits of this research is expressed by: the contribution to the investment culture in emerging markets (especially the use of alternative investment funds oriented to mezzanine financing strategies), the ways of building strategic partnerships dedicated for smart- cities projects, and also contributions regarding the builkdinof a general culture of innovation (based on the Triple- Helix paradigm).

Keywords:

Smart cities, emerging markets, innovative framework for co-finance, mezzanine finance.