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21
Nov, 2013

By portland2015a

Portland Secures Two More Mandates

Portland Advisers has secured two new financial advisory mandates – one in the UK raising construction finance for two solar parks and the other providing bidding support for a waste infrastructure project in Greece.
The former is to raise finance on a short term basis for two solar parks in the South West of the UK with a nameplate capacity of c. 15MW. A potential lender has been identified and at present a comprehensive due diligence exercise is under way with EPC / solar panels most likely being sourced from Germany. Financial Close is envisaged for late December 2013 and construction of the plants will commence in December with the objective of having the plants grid-connected prior to 31 March 2014 in order to achieve 1.6ROC/MWh revenue support.
In Greece, Portland is advising a Greek construction consortium for two infrastructure projects (waste) – one project located in the Athens area and the other located in the Patras area. Both projects will use MBT technology sourced from a highly experienced German supply chain. The consortium has been pre-qualified and after a competitive dialogue with the authorities will have to provide a financial and technical binding bid with the target date of April 2014. Portland is advising how to best structure the debt portion of the transaction.

For further information contact Klaus Frietsch at klaus.frietsch@portlandadvisers.com or on +44 20 7183 8394 or Mike Harlow at mike.harlow@portlandadvisers.com or on +44 20 7183 7200

25
Sep, 2013

By portland2015a

Green Chairs Panel at Euromoney Institutional & Alternative Lender Conference

 

Monday, September 23rd, 2013

In the conference season, Jason Green, Senior Advisor at Portland, chaired a panel discussion amongst institutional investors and asset managers at Euromoney’s inaugural Institutional & Alternative Lending conference in London on 19th-20th September.

With representatives from Allianz Global Investors, Legal & General Investment Management, Aviva Investors and the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, Jason guided the panel through a lively discussion of how the big institutions are providing liquidity to Global Project & Infrastructure deals in the wake of continued bank market weakness.  Topics covered included the growth of privately-placed institutional debt as an alternative to bank finance and traditional public securities, the increased acceptance by pools of investors of greenfield project risks and some of the implications of Solvency II on institutional appetite.  Many of the top credit managers, opportunities funds and direct lending institutions, all known to Portland Advisers, were present.  They are playing a growing and increasingly important role in global financing markets, not only in addressing market failure, but as key providers of liquidity for high quality, long term projects.

For further information see the Euromoney Conference website here or contact Jason directly on +44 (0) 20 7183 8288 and at Jason.green@portlandadvisers.com

 

30
May, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

Knox acts as Expert Witness

Geoff Knox acted as an expert witness to the Supreme Court of Western Australia in the recently settled $3.5 billion lawsuit filed by Perdaman Chemicals against an Australian subsidiary of Lanco Infratech Limited.

Geoff was approached to use his experience of raising non-recourse project financing for major projects to provide input into matters surrounding the debt financing of the financing of Perdaman’s proposed $3.8 billion urea project at Collie, Western Australia, which collapsed in 2011.

For further information click here

 

 

08
May, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

BBC seeks Portland perspective on Sir Alex’s retirement

Following the official announcement by Sir Alex Ferguson that he will retire from his position as manager of Manchester United at the end of the current season in favour of a role as Director and Club Ambassador, Portland’s Head of Stadium Finance, Harry Philp, was sought out by the BBC to reflect on the impact this may have on Manchester United’s commercial strategy.

The full article can be found by clicking here.

For further thoughts and insight, contact Harry directly on +44 20 7183 8392 or at harry.philp@portlandadvisers.com

 

26
Mar, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

US Ex-Im Bank board approves Indian Solar PV project

US Ex-Im Bank has announced that its Board of Directors has approved an export finance loan of US$ 9 million as part of the debt financing for a 11.6 MW solar PV project in Rajasthan, India sponsored by KSK Energy Ventures, an Indian power developer. Debt is being co-financed by IDBI Bank Ltd. Portland Advisers is acting as financial adviser to US Ex-Im Bank.

The solar panels for the project have been procured from Miasolé, a pioneer in the development of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film PV solar panels which are among the highest-efficiency and lowest-cost solar panels.

Click here for the official press release from US Ex-Im Bank.

For further information contact geoff.knox@portlandadvisers.com

 

 

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16
Mar, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

Portland Thought Leadership in Nuclear Power financing

David Stearns, who leads Portland’s nuclear power practice, recently published a thought piece in Nuclear Intelligence Weekly, offering perspectives on nuclear power as an asset class and the outlook for attracting low-cost capital for new-build projects.

A copy of the article can be found by clicking here.

For further information, contact David at david.stearns@portlandadvisers.com or on +44 20 7183 9764.

 

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15
Mar, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

Flitterman Chairs Panel at TMT Finance Conference

In the conference season, Nick Flitterman, Portland’s Head of Telecom’s, chaired a panel discussion amongst bankers and financing executives at TMT Finance’s annual M&A forum in London on 14th March.

With representatives from BNP Paribas, Investec, the EBRD, Digital World Capital and Houlihan Lokey, Nick guided the panel through a lively discussion of topical financing issues including the high level of liquidity in the leveraged bank market for telecom credits, the ups and downs of the high yield bond market and needs of banks as they assess credit proposals for telecom infrastructure projects.

For further information see the TMT Finance website here or contact Nick directly on +44 (0) 20 7183 8385 and at nick.flitterman@portlandadvisers.com

 

31
Jan, 2013

By Nick Flitterman

Portland Panelist at Telecom Finance 2013 Conference

On 30th January, demonstrating his continued thought leadership in the sector, Nick Flitterman, Portland’s Head of Telecoms, joined a distinguished panel of bankers and finance executives at Telecom Finance’s annual conference in London to discuss a number of topical issues and trends in financing telecom infrastructure projects today.

The panel debated topics such as pressure on bank margins, growing use of ECAs in the sector, the improving level of liquidity in the bank market as European banks start to re-enter the fray, and the increasing presence of Chinese banks in funding telecom projects.

For further details see the Telecom Finance website here or contact Nick directly on +44 (0) 20 7183 83 85 or at nick.flitterman@portlandadvisers.com

 

11
Dec, 2012

By Nick Flitterman

GAP gets DFID “Green Light”

In November 2012, the Green Africa Power (“GAP”) initiative received approval from the Department For International Development (“DFID”) for the UK’s proposed contribution to GAP, a new company to be established under the Private Infrastructure Development Group (“PIDG”) Trust.

A substantial amount of funds have been dedicated to help capitalise GAP which will support the implementation of Renewable Energy projects in power starved Sub-Saharan Africa. GAP’s support will be through the provision of deeply subordinated equity tranches into project companies and / or the issuance of guarantee products to cover specific project risks which could facilitate successful financing for such projects. GAP will also enter a policy dialogue with host Governments to help move participating countries towards cost-reflective tariffs.

Portland Advisers, in conjunction with Trinity LLP, an Africa-focused law firm, assisted in the preparation of a business plan and detailed financial model on behalf of PIDG (see our press release in Sept 2011). This business plan formed the basis for DFID’s internal business case in obtaining approval to proceed and invest UK donor capital.

Portland Advisers, in co-operation with Trinity, will remain closely involved with GAP during the next phase of its implementation process. Further news to follow.

For further information please contact either Klaus Frietsch (klaus.frietsch@portlandadvisers.com / 020 7183 8394) or Darryck Luiz (darryck.luiz@portlandadvisers.com / 020 7183 8391)

21
Nov, 2012

By Nick Flitterman

Portland advises on Welsh National Broadband project

In a team lead by Frauke Bialokoz, Portland Advisers has been advising the IT Procurement Team in the Welsh Government on the Next Generation Broadband for Wales (NGBW) project.

Following a competitive process BT was awarded the Next Generation Broadband project for Wales in July 2012 , subject to European State Aid approvals. Following completion (scheduled for the end of 2015), 96 per cent of businesses and homes in Wales will be able to access a fibre-based broadband service. The project will specifically target the 52% of premises in Wales for which there is currently no planned commercial roll out of broadband. It will build on commercial investment already made or planned by the private sector.

Portland Advisers acted as financial adviser to the Welsh Government’s procurement team, providing advice from the early stages with soft market testing to the procurement itself where we were involved throughout by developing evaluation criteria and methodology, providing commercial input into the documents and assisting with all financial aspects of the competitive dialogue process.

An announcement by the Welsh Government regarding the EC decision approving the UK’s National Broadband schemes from November 2012 can be found here.

For further information contact Frauke at frauke.bialokoz@portlandadvisers.com or on +44 20 7183 8386.

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