Federal Credit Fridays: Director Brian Oakley on Federal Lending Trends in Infrastructure Finance

Welcome to Federal Credit Fridays! The U.S. government is one of the largest lenders and credit guarantors on earth. Its portfolio is estimated at over $3.6 trillion, as measured by loan assets and the face value of loan guarantees. The government uses credit for a wide variety of policy missions, including housing, higher education, small businesses, rural and urban economic development, infrastructure, and export promotion, among others. This podcast will familiarize you with the vast world of federal credit, and we hope that you’ll learn about similarities and differences between these programs as well as the importance of their work to achieving policy missions within the framework of public-private collaboration.

In today’s podcast, I sit down with Brian Oakley, a director at Summit. Oakley has over 30 years of experience providing financial advisory services to environmental, energy, transportation, and infrastructure clients in both the private and public sectors, but primarily as an adviser to federal allocators of capital. He has advised over $50 billion of closed project financings and has extensive hands-on experience evaluating, structuring, and negotiating complex transactions, including project financings, P3s, and corporate financings.

Throughout his career, Oakley has had a front-row seat to witness the role of federal credit in fiscal policy since the early 2000s. He shares his thoughts and perspectives on the trends within federal lending in infrastructure finance over the last 20 years. Listen below and let us know what you think.