Project Finance Senior Associate

ENERGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE – 7+ yrs PQE
LONDON / EDINBURGH

Brief

We are currently looking to recruit a talented lawyer to join the Structured and Project Finance Team in London or Edinburgh office, ideally a candidate with at least 7 years PQE specialising in the area.

Background

The role is for a finance lawyer sitting within the market leading Structured and Project Finance Team, which is part of the Projects Group. The team carries out a wide range of top tier and high value project and finance work, including development and financing of new energy and infrastructure projects and refinancings, operational support and M&A relating to those projects, as well as other energy efficiency and low carbon advisory mandates. The clients consist of a number of UK and international banks, renewable energy developers, oil and gas/energy companies, infrastructures funds, private equity and utilities. The work of the team has an increasingly international flavour given both inward investment and also clients looking to invest in international markets working with colleagues in other Pinsent Masons international offices. This is a transactional role, with a large amount of client contact and the opportunity to specialise in a strategic and diverse industry sector.

Our Team

The team act for clients in the energy and infrastructure sectors. It handles the full life cycle of financing transactions, with work ranging from initial term sheets and lender RfPs, to financial close to post-financial close support and advice. It acts on some of the largest infrastructure and energy projects in the UK and is supported by its wide global network for cross-border matters. The team in London is led by Stephen Tobin and Apicksha Patel and in Edinburgh is led by Gillian Frew. The team is integrated with, and frequently works as part of, our teams in other offices.

Key Clients include

• NatWest
• NTR plc
• Gresham House
• Capricorn Energy PLC
• KfW
• Railpen
• Arcus Infrastructure
• Equitix Limited
• Dalmore Capital Limited
• DFIs active in Africa
• Lloyds Banking Group
• Ocean Winds
• Capital Dynamics
• Statkraft
• Greencoat Capital
• Zenobe Energy

Work highlights

• Advised Zenobe Energy on the £235m (and 400m accordion facility) financing of a 200MW / 400MWh transmission connection battery energy storage project at Blackhillock, Keith, Scotland. - the largest facility to be arranged in Europe for the development of battery energy storage projects.
• Acting for NTR on the portfolio financing of 12 onshore wind projects.
• Acting for Dalmore Capital as lead legal adviser on operational PFI projects.
• Acting for NatWest, AIB and Sabadell on the portfolio financing of five anaerobic digestion projects.
• Acting for the Port of Aberdeen on a loan from Scottish National Investment Bank.
• Acting for a development financial institution and its co-lenders in relation to the debt financing of the Takoradi Port Project in Ghana.
• Acting for an international financial institution in relation to the financing of a telecommunications network in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Continuing to advise Flogas (part of DCC Group Plc, a FTSE 100 company) in relation to its project to convert the National Grid liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at Avonmouth into a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage terminal with room to store 34,564 tonnes of LPG.
• Advised a consortium comprising Arcus European Infrastructure (“Arcus”) and GLIL Infrastructure on the acquisition (and co-investment and financing) of the entire issued share capital of Smart Meter Assets 1 Ltd (“SMA”), an energy infrastructure provider in the UK, from Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.
• Advising a development finance institution on its green loan to a South African financial institution to help finance its climate finance business by funding green projects including distributed generation/renewable energy, waste energy, sustainable transport and green buildings across several other African countries.
• Working as TII’s counsel to advise on the procurement of the Dublin Metrolink project, a large civil engineering project in the Republic of Ireland.

Our vacancy

We are now looking to appoint a talented lawyer with at least 7 years PQE to join the Structured and Project Finance Team in London or Edinburgh office. The successful applicant will:

• ideally have gained experience in a large commercial firm with an established energy practice
• have a strong academic background and excellent communication and organisational skills
• be a team player with the ability to forge strong working relationships with colleagues in an agile environment
• be well-organised and have good project management skills

What will we offer you?

• We are a market leading, dynamic and growing global team who work together to produce outstanding results for our clients.
• We invest in our team and have a first-class training and career development programme, monthly 121s, career discussions and semi-annual appraisals. Our training reflects our position as a market leader in communications and sourcing. Our training will assist you to develop as a specialist with valuable sector knowledge and the ability to deliver "best of breed" services.
• Early responsibility and opportunities to develop client relationships.

About the Firm

Pinsent Masons is a global 100 law firm, with over 3,800 employees operating out of 28 locations across Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

Awards

We’re being recognised equally by commentators and other market movers through a plethora of awards spanning every region and culminating in being named law firm of the year by Legal Business, the FT’s most innovative law firm in Europe (for the third time in eight years), winning their sustainability award in Asia Pacific and being ranked as Thomson Reuters’ leading legal brand in their UK index.

We have been recognised as by Stonewall as a Top Global Employer . Recognising that we are a leading employer in advancing LGBT+ inclusion. Pinsent Masons is recognised as a ' Top Ten Employer for Working Families in 2023 ' for the seventh consecutive year. We are accredited as a Disability Confident Employer by the Department for Work & Pensions and we were the first law firm to sign up the global Valuable 500.

At Pinsent Masons we value diversity and inclusion. We are committed to creating a better workplace where all our talent can succeed and feel like they belong. We want to attract, retain and develop people at all levels and encourage applications from all suitably qualified candidates whatever your ethnicity, religion, age, physical or mental disability/ long term condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or any other characteristics protected by local law in the jurisdictions in which we operate.