Herbert Smith has advised a group of 27 lenders on a US$2.5 billion secured loan and letter of credit facility for Lundin Petroleum. The transaction was coordinated by HSBC as documentation bank and BNP Paribas as facility agent and security trustee, along with 15 other lead arrangers.
The facility is available to ten different borrowers within the Lundin group and sized on the basis of their assets in Indonesia, Norway, Sweden and France.
The Herbert Smith team was led by Jason Fox, assisted by senior associates Olivia Caddy, Thomas Bethel and Nick May, associate Suchita Ramanathan and trainee solicitor Kira Krissinel.
William Stevens, Global Head of Upstream Oil and Gas Structuring and Financing, HSBC commented:
“The Herbert Smith team remain the clear market leaders for reserve-based lending work. They put together a great team for this transaction and delivered superb documentation and client service under significant pressure. Their involvement in an upstream deal on the lender side is always a real stamp of quality and was a very significant element in our being able to deliver this deal for Lundin.”
Jason Fox commented:
“This deal is the landmark transaction of the year in the upstream financing space. We were delighted to have been appointed by HSBC and Lundin to act for the lender group.
This is the second largest RBL facility ever arranged in the European market (the largest being the Tullow Oil facility where Herbert Smith also advised the lenders) so we are delighted to have been adviser on this, consolidating our leading position in this part of the bank lending market which continues to flourish even in the current market conditions.”
