Global legal practice Norton Rose Fulbright advised Natixis Singapore Branch as sole mandated lead arranger and underwriter on a US$225 million limited recourse project financing facility to finance two floating production facilities for PetroFirst Infrastructure Limited, a joint venture between energy-focused private equity leader First Reserve and oilfield services giant Petrofac. The joint venture, announced on 26 June 2014, will deploy $1.25 billion of equity capital both in purchasing a number of existing floating production, storage and offloading assets from Petrofac’s Integrated Energy Services (IES) sector, as well as in new infrastructure projects.
The new debt facilities have been provided to two special purpose companies, one holding a mobile offshore production unit “MOPU West Desaru” operated by Petrofac Group offshore Labuan, Malaysia and the other holding a floating production, storage and offloading facility “FPF-003” (formerly “Jasmine Venture”) operated by Mubadala Petroleum offshore Thailand. Proceeds from the financing will allow for the repayment of inter-company debt and shareholder loans.
Norton Rose Fulbright acted as lenders’ counsel, acting out of its Singapore and London offices. Slaughter and May and Freshfields in London advised First Reserve and Petrofac respectively.
Norton Rose Fulbright partner Ben Rose, who led the team advising the Mandated Lead Arranger and lenders, commented:
“This was a complex financing transaction, put in place following extensive corporate and commercial due diligence on behalf of the lenders and equity providers. Multifaceted arrangements had to be put in place between the lenders, sponsors and First Reserve as equity provider, including put option arrangements.”
Source: www.nortonrosefulbright.com
