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) rather than 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.