Project Development & Finance Practice Honored With Six Deal of the Year Awards, Including Three in Latin America

Latham & Watkins’ Project Development & Finance Practice and Latin America Practice earned several accolades in IJGlobal’s 2018 Deal of the Year Awards, receiving six awards for major projects in North America and Latin America. The award-winning deals featured first-of-its-kind financing structures for midstream gas transportation and power generation infrastructure projects in Latin America, as well as a notable telecommunications and energy projects in North America.

The winning projects include:

• Latin America Midstream O&G Deal of the Year - Fermaca El Encino-La Laguna Pipeline Refinancing

  Latham represented Fermaca Pipeline El Encino S. de R.L. de C.V., as borrower, on a hybrid refinancing, which comprised of commercial bank credit facility and a tranche of fixed-rate global notes, in connection with a 420-KM natural gas transportation pipeline in Mexico. This cross-border financing was the first side-by-side bank-and-bond project financing in Mexico involving a pure private placement of the global notes. The global notes were also the first Mexican project bonds to be listed in Singapore, as well as the first certificated debt securities issued in a pure private placement to be made eligible to clear through The Depository Trust Company in the United States. 

• Latin America Solar Deal of the Year - Cerro Dominador

  Latham represented Brookfield Infrastructure Group on the mezzanine financing in connection with the Cerro Dominador Project, a 210-MW concentrated solar power plant and a 110 MW photovoltaic solar power plant located in Santiago, Chile. The project, which involved the first-ever concentrated solar power plant in Latin America, utilized a multi-tranche structure that enabled the sponsors to tap a range of funding sources. 

• Latin America Wind Deal of the Year - Mesa La Paz

  Latham represented project sponsors Grupo Bal and the AES Corporation on the project bond financing in connection with a 306-MW wind powered electric generation facility located in Llera de Canales, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The transaction represented one of the largest power-oriented project financings in Mexico with a private offtaker, as well as one of the largest private placement renewables projects in the country in 2018, and was the first delayed draw notes facilities in Mexico.

• North America Refinancing Deal of the Year- Rhode Island State Energy Center

  Latham represented the borrower, an affiliate of Carlyle Power Fund, in the refinancing of the Rhode Island State Energy Center, a 583-MW natural gas-fired generating facility. The refinancing consisted of a US$318 million seven-year term loan A and a US$45 million revolver. 

• North America Telecom Deal of the Year - Tillman Telecom

  Latham represented lenders La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and AMP Capital Investors Limited in the development of one of the largest telecommunication infrastructure investments to special purpose companies in 2018. When completed, the innovative structure will reach across 36 states. 

• North America Transmission/Distribution Deal of the Year - LS Power

  Latham represented LS Power in the financing of 60-miles of a 500-kv transmission line in Clark County, Nevada. This project will expand the existing One Nevada transmission line, which is the first-ever connection between NV Energy’s northern and southern load centers, helping Nevada export renewable energy out of state to enhance the reliability of the Western Grid.