Infrastructure Finance Senior Associate

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Job Title

Infrastructure Finance Senior Associate

Office Location

London

Department

Infrastructure, Energy, Resources and Projects - Finance

The infrastructure, energy, resources and projects deals that we cover in our team is broader in scope and more relevant to the real world now than it ever has been and the value and market for these skills is greater than it has been in the 25 years since we did the first pathfinder deals in this area at legacy Hogan Lovells.

Hogan Lovells Cadwalader’s Infrastructure, Energy, Resources and Projects (“IERP”) practice is one of the largest and most diverse in the world, operating out of 18 offices. In recent years, our global team has advised on more than US$250bn of closed infrastructure and project finance deals.

Financing infrastructure, energy, resources and projects has been a booming sector globally over the last decade or two and provided fascinating work for our team as well as team growth, promotion and progression opportunities. The market's growth trajectory looks set to continue over the next 20 years and our plan is to grow our practice and team significantly too.

We regularly represent project sponsors, investors, lenders & financial institutions, funds, contractors, insurers, sovereigns and governments on some of the world’s largest and most challenging projects in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States.

The Banking IERP team principally focusses on the financing aspects of the transactions. We assist clients on a wide range of domestic, European and international infrastructure, energy, resources and project finance work across a broad spread of industry sectors (including renewables, power, clean energy, utilities, transport, defence, healthcare, mining, oil and gas and digital) and across the full lifecycle of assets, including many of the most innovative projects to come to the market. The team covers everything from acquisition finance, project finance, PPPs, portfolio financings, fund financings, as well as corporate finance, refinancing and restructuring work. We have a reputation for successfully closing even the most complex deals.

Examples of some of the recent deals our team members have worked on:

• Power and Renewables: advising:
  • Most of the leading multilateral and development finance institutions, including the IFC, DFC, European Investment Bank, African Development Bank, FMO, DEG. and BII, on the full range of emerging market power and renewable project financings, such as solar projects in Kenya, Jordan and Zambia, hydro power in Sierra Leone and geothermal power in Ethiopia.
  • NWF on the financing of Highview Power, a liquid air cryogenic renewable energy storage facility in the UK.
  • Takoradi International Company and its parent TAQA Power on the project financing of the US$325m Takoradi 2 Power Project in Ghana.
  • A syndicate of international banks and EIFO on the €370m ECA-covered financing of the Tyligulska wind power plant in Ukraine.
  • Infracapital on its investment in Zenobe Energy, a leading owner of battery storage in the UK and provider of EV services, and the subsequent introduction of KKR as an investor in Zenobe.
  • The Uzbek government on a US$1.1bn pathfinder 1,600MW CCGT plant project in Syrdarya, Uzbekistan.
  • Merkur Offshore Gmbh on the project financing of the €1.6bn Merkur offshore wind farm.

• Utilities: advising:
  • NWF on the £2.4bn Neuconnect energy interconnector project between UK and Germany.
  • Affinity Water on its award winning £130m first UK sustainability linked bond issuance.
  • Brookfield Infrastructure on its £1bn common debt platform to fund its last mile fibre, electricity and gas business.
  • Calisen on its bid to provide water metering services to a UK utility and the debt finance required to fund it.
  • EIB on the €4.8bn financing of Thames tideway Tunnel project.

• UK Government and BEIS: advising:
  • UK HMT on its loan to Ukraine as part of the G7-wide Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans initiative using sanctioned Russian assets to support Ukrainian military efforts.
  • NWF in connection with development of guarantee and credit enhancement products to be employed in blended finance solutions to enable various innovative climate change related projects to be brought to market.
  • The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on a £1bn Guarantee structure to support climate resilience and adaptability related project loans for at-risk communities in Africa.

• Digital and Telecoms: advising:
  • Lenders and sponsors to telecoms companies and infrastructure funds on the financing of modernising state-of-the-art digital, telecoms and satellite infrastructure, including fibre-to-the-home / premises roll-outs across the UK as part of the Liberty Global / Virgin Media O2 fibre roll out.
  • The Fibrus fibre business in Northern Ireland.
  • Kacific Broadband Satellite, a large multi-jurisdictional satellite project.
  • Vauban Infrastructure Partners on its acquisition of altnet Trooli.
  • Lenders and sponsors to a number of mobile telecoms financings in Africa.
  • Lenders to Macquarie Capital on the acquisition financing and roll out of 1.1m unit fibre-to-the-home network in Spain.

• Transport: advising:
  • Lenders to a consortium bidding for the €5bn Dublin Metrolink DBFM project.
  • The Department for Transport on the Intercity Express Programme (the procurement and financing of the £3.2bn East Coast, £3bn Great Western rolling stock projects.
  • PD Ports, the UK's second largest port operator on its £750m financing.
  • RAPT Développement SA in connection with the disposal of part of its bus operating franchise business in London.
  • Lenders to a Macquarie Capital led consortium on the Czech D4 Motorway project.
  • Cross London Trains on all aspects of the £3.5bn Thameslink rolling stock project.
  • A European parts services operator and the open road maintenance contract on refinancing their bank facilities.

• Infra and Energy M&A: advising:
  • SOCAR on finance matters in relation to its stake in an Israeli offshore energy platform.
  • Lenders to Equitix on the c.£500m acquisition and roll-out of smart meters across the UK and Europe.
  • Creditors on Igneo’s acquisition financing for 100% of Italy’s City Green Light, providing 1m lighting points, LED upgrades and smart city solutions to reduce energy consumption.
  • Stonepeak on its €730m acquisition financing for a stake in Cellnex Nordics, the Swedish and Danish telecoms operators.
  • IFM on its acquisition financing for Briggs, the leading UK and Irish provider of specialist industrial rental equipment.
  • Lenders to Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund on the acquisition of Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports.

• Project Finance: advising:
  • Merkur Offshore Gmbh on the project financing of the €1.6bn Merkur offshore wind farm.
  • Commercial banks, ECAs and institutional lenders on the £1bn Silvertown Tunnel DBFM project in London.
  • Baltic power on the €4.4bn financing of the Baltic Power offshore wind project in Poland.
  • Covanta Energy, Green Investment Group and Veolia on the project financing of a major UK merchant energy-from-waste facility.
  • IFC, DFC, FMO and certain other lenders on the project financing of ContourGlobal Hydro Cascade CJSC’s Vorotan Hydroelectric Facility in Armenia.
  • Metito Utilities Limited on the project financing of a wastewater project in Namangan, Uzbekistan.
• Infrastructure and private equity fund financing: advising many of the market's biggest infrastructure fund players on their raising of debt and fund finance facilities to help fund their project bids and operations, to fund acquisitions and bridge equity capital raisings.

Working Hours

35 hours per week, 9:30am to 5:30pm but additional hours may be required. We are happy to consider agile and flexible working patterns. Our approach to hybrid working allows for up to 40% of time working from home and 60% working in the office, please contact a member of the recruitment team to discuss further.

Key Responsibilities

Specific duties or responsibilities may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changes in personnel and management structure, staff location or services. All members of the firm participate in our Responsible

Business program.

Technical Ability

• Possesses good working knowledge and understanding of the legal principles associated with the scope of work outlined above; proactively develops this knowledge further.
• Ability to lead transactions, as appropriate and depending on their complexity, reporting directly to the supervising partner.
• Strong project management and organisational skills, ensuring timely delivery to high quality standards.
• Shows awareness of legal developments affecting any specialist areas and regularly attends appropriate training sessions.
• Good attention to detail and focus on accuracy.

Team Work and Interpersonal Skills

• Motivated, reliable and flexible.
• Resilient and able to perform effectively under pressure with good time management skills (e.g. meets deadlines and responds to requests in a highly timely manner).
• Has an appreciation of when to seek advice and guidance.
• Takes responsibility for project issues (i.e., “owns” the problem, seeks to understand assigned tasks, follows through).
• Strong interpersonal skills (internal and client facing), both written and oral.
• Ability to work effectively with others in a team.
• Acts as a source of advice to others, sharing knowledge and expertise.
• Demonstrates financial awareness - attention to budgets and costs and timely completion of time recording.
• Uses appropriate level of effort for the task (e.g., performs the appropriate amount of research based on partner and matter needs); works cost effectively to provide value to meet clients’ needs.
• Takes ownership for own career development - proactive in soliciting performance feedback and addressing skills gaps.

Client Focus

• Understands the industry and market in which the clients operate.
• Demonstrates commercial awareness - aware of clients' commercial drivers and own role in achieving clients' business goals.
• Has good working relationships with clients, appropriate to the level of experience.
• Has a good understanding of clients, the sector and the associated risks and opportunities.
• Actively works to develop and strengthen new client relationships.

Firm Mindedness

• Takes an active role in managing the firm's reputation both in and out of work.
• Understands the responsibility to give back to our communities.
• Understands the value of a diverse workforce.

Skills & Experience

The Candidate

We are looking for a Banking Lawyer with infrastructure, energy, resources and project finance experience, ideally 5-7 PQE (or equivalent experience). We will consider candidates who have a mix of experience across infrastructure finance and project finance, as well as those candidates that have a stronger focus in one of those areas over the other.

Candidates should be at a leading City or US firm. It is essential that the candidate has a strong academic background (minimum 2.1 degree) with excellent written communication and drafting skills. The successful candidate will also have outstanding technical skills, together with the ability to build relationships with clients and colleagues and work well in a team.

In return, Hogan Lovells Cadwalader offers excellent training and development, a superb working environment together with a competitive salary and benefits package.

Equal Opportunities Statement

It is the policy of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader to provide equal opportunities for all employees in relation to recruitment, training and promotion. Decisions in these areas will be made only by reference to the requirements of the job and shall not be influenced by any consideration of racial or ethnic origin, religion, sex, gender and gender identity, age, sexual orientation, marital and civil partnership status, pregnancy or disability.

Our goal is to embed flexibility across our business by giving everyone the opportunity to work in an agile way, whether as a regular pattern or on an ad hoc basis, and we will be happy to discuss this further.

All agency submissions / candidate introductions for roles in the UK must be uploaded onto the firm’s recruitment portal. Agencies must sign up to our standard terms for agencies to have access to the portal. Any agency submission / candidate introduction that does not follow this process or is sent directly to any Partners or employees of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader will not incur an agency fee, unless agreed in advance in writing by a member of the recruitment team.

If you are interested in becoming a trusted partner of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader please contact a member of the recruitment team.