Project Finance Team Excels at Power Finance & Risk Awards

The Latham & Watkins Project Development & Finance Practice earned recognition for advising on three “Deals of the Year” at Power Finance & Risk (PFR)’s 14th Annual Deals and Firms of the Year Awards. The honored work included complex and precedent-setting financings of major energy projects. PFR’s annual contest recognizes “excellence in power finance and asset M&A across the Americas” based on a poll of industry leaders. 

In addition, PFR honored New York partner Amy Maloney as “Project Finance Attorney of 2016.”

The firm advised on the following “Deals of the Year”:

• ArcLight Capital Partners’ Leeward Wind Portfolio (“North America Renewables Project Finance Deal of 2016”): Latham served as sponsor counsel in a deal that “serves as a blueprint for renewable portfolio financings going forward.”
• Invenergy Lackawanna (“North America Conventional Power Project Finance Deal of 2016”): Latham served as sponsor counsel to Invenergy (named “Project Finance Borrower of 2016” by PFR) in the approximately US$1 billion debt financing for the 1,485 MW gas-fired Lackawanna project in Pennsylvania. The deal was described as a “complicated financing, drawing on multiple investor pools.”
• Cheniere’s Sabine Pass ‘Cross-over’ Bonds (“Americas LNG Project Finance Deal of 2016”): Latham acted as sponsor counsel to Cheniere in connection with two US$1.5 billion issuances of project bonds for the Sabine Pass LNG project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The project entered the public market in September 2016 after S&P Global Ratings raised the project’s rating to investment grade. According to PFR, the project featured a unique form of ‘cross-over credit’ in which “the issuer had one investment grade rating and one sub-investment grade rating.”