Laura Gordon

Highlights of Laura's experience include:

• Advising Lloyds Bank plc, HSBC Equipment Finance and NIBC Bank NV on the GBP100 million financing of a portfolio of gas fuelled peaking power stations in the UK owned by Green Frog Power and benefiting from capacity market contracts. An accordion facility was included to enable the acquisition and development of additional sites.
• Advising on a number of wind farm financings in the Nordics, including:
  • advising the borrower on the refinancing of operational sites in Sweden and Finland;
  • advising Landesbank Baden-Württemberg on the finance documents for the development of a 51 turbine Tonstad wind farm in Norway by ENGIE and SUSI; and
  • advising Nord/LB as funder on the financing of Marguerite's c.50MW Grimsås wind farm in Sweden.
• Advising OPIC on the financing of phase 1 of the 500MW Zaporizhia wind farm in Ukraine and on English law aspects of the financing of a solar park in Jordan.
• Advising Nord LB on short term bridging finance secured on a solar project in Portugal.
• Advising clients including Nord LB, MUFG, Helaba, NAB, SMBC, HSBC Equipment Finance, DZ Bank AG, Equitix and John Laing on the financing of wind and solar projects in the UK, including projects benefiting from ROCs, FiTs and CfDs. These used a variety of financing structures, including traditional SPV project finance, portfolio financings, accordion facilities, letter of credit facilities and structures blending bank and institutional debt.
• Advising a major pension fund on the purchase of debt interests in a portfolio of UK project financings, including off-shore wind, on-shore wind, energy from waste and energy efficiency.
• Advising a local authority on making a loan to its PFI concessionaire and consequential adjustments to the existing PFI finance structure and intercreditor arrangements.
• Advising St James's Oncology SPC Ltd and its investors on the GBP261 million refinancing of the Leeds Oncology PFI project in northern England. New monies were provided by way of listed and private bonds guaranteed by Assured Guaranty (Europe) Limited. Laura's role included advising on aspects of the release of the existing funding which involved an unusual structure whereby the Department of Health had granted loan facilities, guaranteed by commercial banks.
• Advising Highways England on the GBP1.3 billion refinancing of the M25 DBFO, including a listed bond issue of c. GBP890 million to refinance existing commercial bank debt, continued funding from the European Investment Bank and a new debt service reserve facility.
• Advising the Department for Transport on the refinancing of the Thameslink Rolling Stock Programme. The refinancing was undertaken in line with a challenging programme and raised GBP104 billion in senior debt from a club of 19 banks, including EIB, enabling the DFT to achieve significant savings.