Social Infrastructure · Courts

What pays for a courthouse — and how stable it is

A courts PFI splits the asset from the justice: the investor funds and maintains the secure courthouse and is paid a long, government-backed, inflation-linked unitary charge for availability and hard FM — paid whether or not every courtroom sits — while HMCTS runs the hearings. On top sits the court services (security & screening, ushering, cleaning) that flex with how many rooms are in session. The availability charge is the rock-solid core; sittings add a services kicker. The case turns on the number of courtrooms, the charge, and utilisation.

120
£400k
80%
LIVE
Courtroom in session sitting — services in use Available courtroom funded whether it sits or not Court services security, ushering, cleaning Unitary charge paid at the entrance
Flows — annualised from current assumptionsper year
Revenue p.a.
£0
£0 / hr
EBITDA p.a.
£0
0% margin
Revenue / courtroom
£0
unitary + services
Rooms in session
0
80% utilisation
Stocks — what the flows accumulate intolive
Rooms sitting now
0
of 120 courtrooms
EBITDA banked · session
£0
accumulating in real time
Implied enterprise value
£0
at 16× EBITDA
Where revenue comes from Total £0 p.a.
Availability & hard FM
Court services
Why investors like courts PFI: the unitary charge is a long, sovereign-backed, inflation-linked annuity for the availability of a secure, purpose-built courthouse, paid by the Ministry of Justice regardless of how many rooms actually sit. That contracted core supports very high leverage and low, stable equity returns. The court-services layer (security & screening, ushering, cleaning) flexes with utilisation, adding a modest kicker. The real risks are operational — availability and FM-performance deductions — not demand.
Revenue streams£0 p.a.
Operating costs£0 p.a.
Investment case — should you buy it?DCF returns

Year-1 financials flow live from the simulation above: revenue £0 and EBITDA £0 p.a. Set your deal terms below — the unlevered IRR (asset return) and levered IRR (return to equity, after debt) recompute instantly.

Operating

%
%
%
%
%
%

Valuation & hold

×
×
y

Financing

×
%
%
Unlevered IRR
—
asset / project return
Levered IRR
—
return to equity
Equity multiple
—
MOIC over hold
Equity gain
—
exit equity − invested
Equity cash-flow profile£m · ■ invested   ■ returned
Projection — £m per year

Illustrative model. Represents an availability-based courts PFI/PPP. Revenue = a contracted unitary charge for availability & hard FM (courtrooms × charge, paid regardless of utilisation) plus court services (security & screening, ushering, cleaning) and facilities income that scale with how many rooms sit. Operating costs (hard FM & lifecycle, security & soft FM, energy & utilities, insurance & SPV, a management fee) are part fixed (per courtroom) and part activity-driven — so the unitary annuity is a stable high-margin core while court-services revenue and cost flex together. Judicial and court-administration services are provided separately by HMCTS and are not part of this model. EBITDA = revenue − operating costs; excludes upfront construction capex and senior debt service. The investment case is a simplified DCF. For illustration only — not investment advice, and not any specific asset.