Bank of the Year – Santander
In the multifaceted world of project finance, it helps to have broad offerings for your clients. From being able to lead major deals, to transacting across asset classes and geographies, to providing innovation in the marketplace, Santander was at the top of its game across these important categories to stand out as the Americas Bank of the Year.
The Spanish bank could be seen across commercial loan and bond markets, leading term loans B and offering local currency deals from its various offices around the region. The breadth of activity meant the group enjoyed a strong year in league tables, hovering around the top of the lists for mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners in the Americas.
Santander was a major player in some of the biggest deals in the region. It could offer its hefty balance sheet to take a huge upfront ticket as a coordinating lead arranger on Stonepeak’s US$4.7bn financing the purchase of a 50% stake in Dominion Energy’s 2.6GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm, for example.
It was at the forefront of new markets and technologies, such as when it was one of the banks leading Blackstone-owned data centre operator QTS’s US$1.39bn term loan to back a data centre in Richmond, Virginia. The bank could also provide other solutions to clients in the booming data centre sector, such as it did on Switch’s ABS data centre offerings, with that company’s two issuances for US$1.7bn making it the largest data centre ABS issuer in the year working alongside Santander.
The bank was impressive in renewable energy deals across the region, playing a key role in offering newer products like pre-notice to proceed loans in the US, while also taking part in a wide-ranging group of industry standard renewables deals.
It was very productive leading bond transactions, particularly in Latin America, helping clients max out green bond sales on numerous occasions in Argentina. It also underwrote huge deals in Latin America, such as the 20% upfront it provided for Actis’s purchase of Enel’s assets in Peru, a deal for which it also provided hedges and other products.
The bank also continued to win big mandates during 2024 to advise on massive upcoming deals in the region, this year being tapped as one of the financial advisers to Mexico Pacific for its potentially US$15bn Saguaro Energia LNG export project in Sonora, among other mandates.
Santander showed key innovations in the market, proactively rotating assets to maximise profitability while expanding its cooperation with the booming private debt market, according to Marcel Patino, global head of private debt mobilisation at Santander.
In 2024, Apollo and Santander agreed to a partnership in which Apollo-managed Apterra and affiliates will invest in an approximately US$370m portfolio of infrastructure credit. Blackstone Credit & Insurance also signed an agreement to buy interests in a US$1bn infrastructure loan portfolio from Santander that backed assets in the US across the digital infrastructure, utility-scale renewable, energy efficiency and transport sectors.
BlackRock and Santander signed a memorandum of understanding by which funds and accounts managed by BlackRock will invest up to US$1bn per year in certain project finance, energy finance, and infrastructure debt investment opportunities with Santander through structured transaction formats.
Deal of the Year – CVOW
Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners this year closed the largest single renewable energy asset project financing in US history backing its acquisition of a 50% stake in Dominion Energy’s 2.6GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, which stood out as the Americas Deal of the Year.
CVOW will be the largest offshore wind farm in the US when it comes online in 2026 and the financing was equally impressive, using unique project dynamics to bring in a huge number of lenders for an attractively priced deal. Those who worked on the deal were able to take advantage of an evolving regulatory environment, maturing offshore wind market, and investor appetite for larger-scale renewable energy investments in the US.
The financing totalled US$4.7bn split between a US$3.84bn term loan, a US$550m delayed draw term loan, a US$100m liquidity facility, and a US$210m letter of credit. Mizuho, Credit Agricole, ING, MUFG and Santander were the coordinating lead arrangers and committed to the financing upfront in support of Stonepeak’s bid for the stake.
Once successful, they were able to bring in an impressive 24 additional lenders, highlighting the broad market appeal for the deal. Pricing was an attractive 187.5bp during construction, then 200bp to year three, 212.5bp in year four, and 237.5bp in year five.
BBVA, CaixaBank, CIBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, DNB, Lloyds, NatWest, KfW IPEX-Bank, OCBC, RBC, Toronto-Dominion, Truist and Standard Chartered joined as lead arrangers. Other banks were AIB, Bank of China, Desjardins, IBK, ICO, Kookmin, KDB, NAB, NH Bank and US Bank.
Milbank was legal adviser to the lenders. Vinson & Elkins served as legal adviser to Stonepeak. Mizuho Securities through its affiliate Greenhill & Co and Santander US Capital Markets served as co-financial advisers to Stonepeak. McGuire Woods and Morgan Lewis served as legal advisers to Dominion. Citi and Goldman Sachs acted as co-financial advisers to Dominion.
Stonepeak is among a few private investors to acquire an interest in rate-based assets from Dominion Energy and one of the first major private equity investors in US offshore wind. The project’s rate-base revenue structure allows the sponsors to earn a pre-determined rate of return, mitigating construction cost overrun risk as well as operational performance risk.
That regulatory construct is unique relative to most non-recourse project finance transactions, as it generates rate base revenue pursuant to a rider with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. This gives the project reliable and leverageable cashflows but requires relatively atypical sizing, structuring, and credit analysis from lenders.
Dominion Energy will retain full control of the construction and operations of the project and Stonepeak will have customary minority rights while funding 50% of the project costs provided the total project cost, excluding financing costs, is less than US$11.3bn.
CVOW will have 176 turbines and three offshore substations spread over a nearly 113,000-acre lease area off the coast of Virginia Beach, providing power to some 660,000 households that Dominion serves. The project will be critical to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s goal to power 30% of its electric system with renewable resources by 2030 and 100% by 2045.
Renewables Deal of the Year – Green River Energy Center
In a deal that brought together key tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, Utah-based renewables developer RPlus Energies closed on US$1.15bn in five-year construction debt financing for its Green River solar plus storage project in Emery County, Utah.
The financing was led by MUFG as administrative agent, with Credit Agricole, KeyBanc, Truist and Wells Fargo also in lead roles. Bank of China was bookrunner and participants included Commonwealth Bank of Australia, KfW IPEX-Bank, RBC and Zions Bank. The loan priced at SOFR plus 225bp.
Green River marked the debut of RPlus as an independent power producer. The project will provide 400MW of solar and 400MW of four-hour duration storage under a power purchase agreement with PacifiCorp. It is one of the largest solar and storage projects ever developed in the US and one of the first and largest syndicated financings to leverage the IRA’s transferability rules without a parent guaranty.
The transaction used an uncovered tax credit transfer bridge loan structure in which a portion of the debt tied to the project’s tax credits was made available prior to a tax equity or tax transfer commitment being reached.
The bridge loan was conservatively sized at a discount to the market pricing of tax credits. The structure enabled the sponsor to close the debt financing without a tax equity commitment, start construction and defer the tax equity raise until closer to its operations date in order to secure more attractive terms.
Lenders benefited from a flexible structure tailored to the downside case of a conservatively priced tax credit transfer commitment, while the sponsor has upside potential if an attractive tax equity financing is raised.
RPlus Energies is backed by Sandbrook Capital and the Gardner Group. Norton Rose Fulbright served as lead counsel to RPlus and Dorsey & Whitney served as special Utah counsel to RPlus. Lenders were represented by Winston & Strawn with support from Snell & Wilmer on Utah law matters. Engineering, procurement, and construction services will be provided by Sundt Renewables.
P3 Deal of the Year – I-10 Calcasieu
Calcasieu Bridge Partners financed one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in Louisiana history with its private activity bond transaction for the US$2.3bn Interstate 10 Calcasieu River Bridge.
The consortium comprises Plenary Americas (40%), Sacyr (30%) and Acciona (30%) and the partner is the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
The toll project will connect the towns of Lake Charles and Westlake in Louisiana. The state of Louisiana is contributing close to US$1.2bn during construction while the long-term financing includes US$1.33bn in tax-exempt private activity bonds led by JP Morgan and Wells Fargo. The Louisiana Public Facilities Authority served as conduit issuer. The issuer will lend the bond proceeds to the project company via a loan agreement that has back-to-back payment terms and dates as the indenture for the bonds.
A US$111.7m tranche maturing in 2054 and US$321.7m tranche maturing in 2059 were each priced with a coupon of 5.5%, a US$582.2m tranche maturing in 2064 was priced at 5.75%, and a US$317.2m tranche maturing in 2066 was priced at 5%.
The concession runs for 50 years after partial acceptance, or roughly 57 total years. The project includes a new eight-lane bridge with three travel lanes and one auxiliary lane in each direction, demolition and removal of the existing 70-year-old Calcasieu River Bridge once traffic is transferred to the new bridge, operations and maintenance of the new bridge, and tolling operations, including a customer service centre.
Moody's assigned the bonds a Baa3 rating with a stable outlook. Proceeds will pay a portion of the costs of designing and constructing the bridge and a portion of the interest during construction. Costs not covered by bond proceeds will be funded from six milestone payments made by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to the private partner, along with toll revenues, equity contributions from Calcasieu Bridge Partners Holdco, and interest earnings. Payments due under the bond terms are principally expected to be paid from toll revenues.
The structure of the deal also includes an equity-funded US$50m reserve to back the project company's cost-sharing for escalation risk due to higher-than-expected inflation for a small share of the total construction price. Monthly draws from the bond proceeds account during construction cannot exceed the amount specified in the financial model at financial close, which ensures that US$172m of interest earnings during construction will occur as forecast.
Equity contributions of US$538m will be backed by a letter of credit non-recourse to the project company until contributed in cash. Moody's projects an average total DSCR of 1.6x from 2032 through 2066, excluding the release of the ramp-up reserve. The bonds are fixed rate and fully amortise with a final maturity in 2066, leaving a 15-year concession tail.
Construction of the bridge is scheduled to begin in 2026 and it is due to open to traffic in 2031, serving more than 90,000 vehicles daily by 2040. The project represents Sacyr's first major transport infrastructure concession contract in the US, one of the countries "marked as strategic" by the company and in which it expects to grow significantly in the coming years, Sacyr said.
Nossaman advised the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin served as counsel for the sponsor and Ballard Spahr served as lenders’ counsel.
Data Centre Deal of the Year – Switch Bighorn
With a combined US$4.5bn financing, Switch’s Bighorn represented one of the largest data centre project financing deals and innovated through the structuring, underwriting, and syndication of two related projects in parallel for the same sponsor. The deal demonstrated growing enthusiasm in the market for data centre deals with 2.4x oversubscription at close.
The projects in Reno, Nevada include a turnkey project with a capacity of 300MW and a powershell project with a capacity of 360MW. Both projects anchored by an investment-grade global cloud services provider. The project’s cashflows are considered highly stable with fixed lease payments under a triple net lease, through which the tenant is responsible for all operating expenses. The project benefits from low-cost power and fibre connectivity, a favourable sales tax environment, and low risk of natural disaster.
For the US$3.4bn turnkey facility financing MUFG served as lead-left alongside SMBC, Societe Generale and Mizuho as initial coordinating lead arrangers. Additional arrangers included BBVA, CaixaBank, CIBC, CoBank, DBS Bank, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan, Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, National Australia Bank, NordLB, Oversea-Chinese Banking, RBC and Standard Chartered.
Participants included Banco Popular and Westpac. The financing included a US$2.72bn term loan B, US$300m term loan A, US$320.6m revolving credit, and US$70.3m standby letter of credit, all due October 2029.
The same four initial coordinating lead arrangers came together for the more than US$1bn in financing for the powershell. Additional arrangers included BBVA, CoBank, DBS Bank, Huntington National Bank, Natixis and Standard Chartered. The financing included a US$1.06bn term loan and US$23m standby letter of credit, both due November 2029. Switch is backed by IFM and DigitalBridge. Milbank served as borrower’s counsel and Davis Polk & Wardwell served as lenders’ counsel.
LNG Deal of the Year – Cedar LNG
Pembina Pipeline and Haisla Nation secured financing for the first commercially financed floating LNG production project in North America, the 3.3m tonnes per year Cedar LNG scheme in Kitimat, British Columbia.
The transaction was also notable as the first Indigenous-led and majority-owned LNG export facility globally and is projected to be one of the lowest greenhouse gas-emitting LNG producers globally with the use of renewable hydroelectricity from BC Hydro.
Cedar LNG secured a construction term loan with a syndicate of domestic and international banks led by MUFG and the project was funded with asset-level debt financing for approximately 60% of the project cost. Additional lead arrangers included Scotiabank, ATB Financial, Bank of China, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, China Construction Bank, Export Development Canada, ING, Mizuho, National Bank of Canada, RBC and Toronto-Dominion. Participants included Canadian Western Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea, First Commercial Bank, ICBC, and Korea Development Bank.
The US$4.5bn financing package included a US$2.68bn, seven-year term loan and US$2.6bn, five-year revolving credit and working capital facility. The remaining 40% of the cost was to be funded through equity contributions from both partners. The equity structure was bespoke, with Haisla Nation obtaining committed capital through the First Nations Finance Authority to fund its 20% equity contribution. The revolving loan will be used to post the largest nonrecourse LC facility seen in the project finance market to date.
Pembina issued a notice to proceed to EPC contractors Samsung Heavy Industries and Black & Veatch. The project has a long-term transport agreement on the Coastal GasLink pipeline for 400m cubic feet of gas per day of firm capacity. Gas will be delivered to the project through an 8km pipeline that connects to the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The project will be built on Haisla Nation-owned land in the Douglas Channel, a shipping route on the BC coast, and source gas from the Montney resource play in northeast BC. Cedar LNG is expected to be in service in late 2028.
The project’s entire capacity is underpinned by 20-year, take-or-pay, fee-for-service tolling agreements with investment-grade offtakers, ARC Resources and Pembina.
MUFG served as financial adviser to Cedar LNG and Latham & Watkins acted as legal counsel to Cedar LNG on the project financing. Stikeman Elliott served as Canadian legal counsel to Cedar LNG on the project financing and Norton Rose Fulbright acted as legal counsel for the lenders. CIBC acted as sole financial adviser to the Haisla Nation in connection with its financing with the First Nations Finance Authority. Miller Titerle + Company served as legal counsel to Haisla Nation.
Infrastructure Deal of the Year – Aguas Esperanza
Sponsors Almar Water Solutions, part of Abdul Latif Jameel, and local transmission group Transelec, through joint venture Aguas Esperanza, this year closed the Americas Infrastructure Deal of the Year via a US$1.5bn financing package backing a water conveyancing project connecting to major mining operations in Chile’s arid north.
The deal stands out for its size, the novelty of the asset, the sustainability of the plan, the intricacies of the structuring, and the ability to include new pockets of capital in the space.
The financing included a US$1.35bn project finance debt package split between a syndicated commercial bank loan, private placement, and letter of credit. The US$635m 12-year term loan and US$635m placement were sized the same, with BBVA, Santander, Intesa, KfW, Natixis and Credit Agricole on the bank tranche and The Carlyle Group, Denham, Allianz and Hanwha on the private tranche.
The same banks apart from BBVA provided the US$81m letter of credit and hedges. There was a separate US$216m equity bridge financing provided by Scotiabank to Transelec for its share of the equity. Macquarie Capital acted as financial adviser and sole placement agent to Aguas Esperanza.
There is also a performance bond financing in which Santander has agreed to issue performance bonds under the offtake agreement at Antofagasta Mineral’s Centinela mine. Latham & Watkins and Barros & Errazuriz advised the sponsors, Milbank and Cuatrecasas advised the banks and lenders.
Work includes the acquisition, refitting, and operation of a 144km water pipeline to transport more than 110,000m3/day, supplying seawater to the Antofagasta and Marubeni mines in the region, including Nueva Centinela, which will add 144,000 tonnes of copper, 3,500 tonnes of molybdenum and 130,000 ounces of gold extraction per year.
The water conveyancing deal is one of a number project finance deals that include a private placement or 4(a)(2) bond tranche that have been done in Latin America of late, which are assuaging increasing appetite for institutional investors for project finance paper in the investment-grade countries in the region and bringing new capital to sustainable developments. This was the largest of those deals done in the region in 2024.
The novelty of the offtake and lack of government offtake also makes the lender comfort in the credit impressive. The project will begin operations in 2026 following a 20-month construction period.
Gas Deal of the Year – Mayakan
French giant Engie was able to close the Americas Gas Deal of the Year with its US$2.5bn project financing backing the expansion of its natural gas pipeline network in the Yucatan Peninsula – a strategic project in the Mexican energy landscape.
The seven-year deal brought together a stellar roster of banks in the deal to provide a US$2.125bn term loan, a US$140m debt service reserve account letter of credit, and a US$235m performance LC facility. The term loan has a two-year grace period and a balloon at the end of the tenor.
BBVA, Santander, Citibank, IMI – Intesa Sanpaolo, IXIS CIB, Mizuho, MUFG, Natixis, Scotiabank, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered, SMBC, Banco Mercantil del Norte and Credit Agricole arranged the deal, while Banco Sabadell, Bladex, JP Morgan, Mega International Commercial Bank and Monex were participants.
Borrowers counsel was Covington & Burling and Baker McKenzie in Mexico, while lenders counsel was Milbank and Nadar, Hayaux, y Goebel locally. Bonatti is the EPC contractor. The sponsors are Engie Mexico (83.75%) and EXI (16.25%).
The participants were able to work seamlessly across different groups and across borders and languages to successfully complete a multibillion dollar energy deal that will have lasting impact on the energy security of Mexico. Arrangers on the three-tranche deal were also able to bring in tasty US$1.53m fee packages.
The financing backs a portfolio of two assets – the fully operational 797km Mayakan gas pipeline and the construction of its 692km expansion and associated ancillary infrastructure, known as Cuxtal II.
In late 2022 state-owned utility Comision Federal de Electricidad signed a deal with Engie to expand the pipeline, ceding some of its ground in the energy market to the private sector.
The pipeline can supply up to six CFE power plants, but as two new plants come online and gas demand grows in the Yucatan Peninsula, the need to develop additional gas transport infrastructure became imperative.
The peninsula is somewhat isolated from other Mexican natural gas infrastructure and there is a need for investments, something which the country thinks it cannot do without private sector capital.
Mayakan benefits from a transportation service agreement with the CFE, rated BBB/Baa2, through a take-or-pay structure with no volume or commodity risk expiring in 2050. Once Cuxtal II achieves COD, the deal will be restated to include the expansion’s additional contracted capacity and be extended through 2055.
Following close of the PF, Macquarie bought a 50% stake in the Mayakan pipeline for US$360m. Bank of America and SMBC were financial advisers to Engie while Rothschild advised Macquarie.
To see the digital version of this report, please click here.
To purchase printed copies or a PDF of this report, please email leonie.welss@lseg.com
