BSEIF’s Infrastructure & Transport Logistics division has published its Initial Statement, the second piece of official divisional research released by the association after the Digital Infrastructure statement. Written by Leonardo Gatti, Head of Infrastructure & Transport Logistics, it defines the context, scope and standards for the division’s work on airports, ports, railways, roads and the logistics facilities that connect them.
Its starting point is that transport infrastructure has to be judged twice: by the service it provides and by the cash flows its owners can expect. The two do not always coincide. Catania–Fontanarossa carried about 12.5 million passengers in 2025, yet its operator earned about €28 million of EBITDA in 2024, against about €77 million at the operator of Naples airport, which serves a similar number of passengers. The statement takes this gap as the reason the subject is worth studying: the value a network creates does not necessarily accrue to the entity that finances or operates it.
From that premise follow three tests, which the division will apply to every asset it studies. The first asks whether the network supports the demand assumed, and the statement traces how the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz repriced container lanes unevenly, with the spot rate from the Far East to the US East Coast rising from $2,651 to $11,512 per 40-foot container. The second asks what ownership and contract entitle an investor to, and for how long, with the sale of a majority stake in SAC and CK Hutchison’s proposed ports sale as cases. The third asks what the asset costs to build and finance, and who bears the risk. Regulation shapes all three.
The research will be organised around five areas: airports and aviation infrastructure; ports, maritime infrastructure and trade corridors; railways, roads and intermodal connections; logistics infrastructure and supply chains; and transactions, concessions and infrastructure financing. The first papers are expected to take up the airport systems of Southern Italy and port investment in Southeast Asia.
The statement also records the division’s commitments. Research will be reviewed and challenged by peers before publication; every figure will carry its source and date; traffic forecasts, synergy estimates and projected returns will be kept apart from observed results; and material errors will be corrected in a new, dated version. The work represents the analysis of its authors and the division, not the views of Bocconi University, a company, a public authority or a sponsor, and does not constitute investment advice.
The full statement is available under Insights, in the Infrastructure & Transport Logistics section. It can be read on the website, opened separately or downloaded as a PDF.