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In July 2014, a new type a public-private joint venture (Société d’économie mixte à opération unique) was created in France. This is the translation into French legislation of the European originated concept of institutionalized public-private partnership (IPPP). This new governance modality for the development of public projects aims at addressing some of the limits of contractual public-private partnerships, i.e. their financial costs, their opacity that impairs the public contractor’s control and their lack of flexibility that increases the risk of contractual hold-ups. We show that although IPPPs address to some extent these difficulties, they may also induce other specific risks.