민간투자사업 후순위차입 계약의 성질과 ‘고율의 이자’

This article addresses the issues in the subordinated debts (hereinafter, the “Sub-Debts”) in the PPP(Public-Private Partnerships) projects under the Act on Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure (hereinafter, the “PPP Act”). The Sub-Debts have been let with interest rates within the range of about 15% to 60% for the recent decade. This rate has been considered as extremely high compared to the level of recent normal interest rates even if we consider there must be put some premium to the normal loans in case of subordinated loans. This high interest rate issue has been pointed as the core problem in PPP areas, because vast government subsidies has been provided to the PPP projects ending up only feeding the project SPCs and the investors thereof. However, the view needs to be changed. Firstly, it should be rethought whether the Sub-Debts is the pure loan given its nature of strong bondage with the existing stockholders. If the nature of the contract is viewed differently, the nature of the rate also needs to be viewed differently, not as the pure interest rate but as the piece of average rate of equity capital which includes the stock and the Sub-Debts, so called “Blended ROE” in practice. Under this view, the standard by which to valuate the rate should be changed, which means that the rate is no longer pure ‘interest rate’. Following this view point, all the issues surrounding high ‘interest rate’ need to be reviewed and re-characterized.