Allen & Overy acted as Australian and international counsel to the export credit agencies and commercial lenders on the financing of the integrated Roy Hill iron ore project, the world’s largest ever project financing in the mining sector.
The project sponsors, namely Hancock Prospecting, Marubeni, POSCO and CSC recently announced the finalisation of the USD7.2 billion project financing arrangements, which completes the funding package required to construct the USD10 billion project.
Allen & Overy worked closely with the export credit agencies, namely Export-Import Bank of Korea, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance and Export-Import Bank of the United States, and the 19 commercial banks to negotiate, document and complete this landmark transaction.
Adam Stapledon, the Sydney-based partner who led the Allen & Overy team, said: “We are pleased to have been involved in what is a ground breaking and strategically important project. This deal will see Australia expand its capacity to supply a key ingredient for infrastructure development globally. The structuring and risk allocation of the deal were complex and it was one of the first mega projects to be financed without a full completion guarantee from sponsors.”
“Our ability to mobilise high performing teams in each of the home jurisdictions of the key lenders, including in Australia, contributed towards signing the deal in a much shorter timeframe than is the case for similar transactions.” he said.
The Roy Hill Project is one of the largest integrated mining projects being undertaken globally, comprising the development of a very large high-grade iron ore deposit in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and the construction of the port and rail infrastructure required to transport the ore to global markets. The Roy Hill Project is expected to produce, at low cost, 55 million tonnes of ore per annum.
The Allen & Overy team was led by Australian partners Adam Stapledon and Chris Rushton, with partner-elect David Christensen and senior associates Scott Lovell and Simon Huxley. They were supported by Tokyo-based partner Matthias Voss and associate Taruma Naito, Washington D.C.- based partners David Slade and Greg Smith and associate Ann Lilienthal, New York associate Rebecca Stubbs and Singapore-based associate David Rho.
