Bank of the Year – Credit Agricole
Credit Agricole has spent 2024 advising on some of the largest project financings in Europe as well as lead arranging a host of deals – 47 to date in EMEA, the highest figure for a bank, and counting.
The bank has established a leadership position in offshore wind with three of its mega deals due to close in 2025 with the ground work done in 2024. In addition it is advising on one of the first carbon capture and storage deals across the globe, HyNet, which is due to close shortly.
The bank alongside Santander advised and lent to the Sonnedix portfolio financing backing 1.1GW of operating assets in Spain, Italy and France plus 0.3GW of solar under construction in the UK via a new €2.5bn package.
The deal was complex given the size of the portfolio and the number of individual financings being taken out but simple in the desire to create one single debt platform with room for growth.
Earlier in the year it was MLA and sole green loan coordinator for another JP Morgan Asset Management-owned deal, a €630m financing backing the 4.2GW Nadara portfolio across Europe.
It advised on selling Aviva's UK power assets to CKI. It had a winning streak in advising in the reviving airport sector – Edinburgh Airport, AGS Airports and F2i Airport sales plus the Copenhagen Airport refinancing.
In the rail sector it advised on the €1.3bn refinancing of Alpha Trains along with Santander and on the €730m US private placement refinancing of freight car group VTG. In the telecoms sector it was MLA, underwriter and bookrunner on the monster €12.3bn Telecom Italia acquisition deal led by KKR.
The global energy and infrastructure group is headed by Jean Francois Grandchamp in Paris with power and utilities headed by Guillaume Richard, infrastructure and advisory by Matthew Norman and resources and industry by Sophie Loiodice. The EMEA teams are headed by Thomas Ragot, Emmanuel Tellier and Matthieu Duhem respectively.
Infrastructure Deal of the Year – R4
Besix and Stadsbader’s Bravo-4 consortium raised €1bn of long-term debt for the R4 West East road upgrade PPP project in Ghent, Belgium, with the longest tenor in the deal at 37 years. The deal was primarily financed by 12 Belgian and international lenders and funders. About half the debt was provided by institutional lenders and insurers.
Canadian institutional lenders including Sun Life Financial, Manulife and Canada Life took part alongside Aviva Investors and Belgian lenders AG Insurance and Ethias in a €500m, 37-year amortising private placement note with a small tail.
It covers the R4’s seven-year construction period followed by 30 years of operation under an availability-based contract, with construction and periodic maintenance costs paid by project authority De Werkvennootschap.
The other half of the syndicated debt package was provided by a bank group including KBC Securities, Belfius Bank, CaixaBank, Credit Agricole, Korea Development Bank and DZ Bank. The bank tranche is floating but hedged, and is priced at 150bp. Pricing on the institutional tranche was undisclosed but is higher than the bank debt and has a fixed coupon.
The tranches include a €360m, 25-year amortising bank term loan and a €40m milestone bridge facility available during construction. A €100m equity bridge takes gearing to 90%. EBL participants include CaixaBank, KBC Securities, Credit Agricole, Belfius Bank, and DZ Bank. The debt is fully amortising apart from the EBL, which has a bullet payment. There is no cash sweep.
A total of 18 lenders were said to have taken part in the deal – besides the 12 mentioned. The other six included subsidiaries where part of their debt ticket was apportioned to funds under their management, for example SunLife Hong Kong or Manulife HK.
The Bravo-4 consortium comprises construction firms Besix and Stadsbader, financial advisory firm Rebel as sponsor and adviser, Belgian infrastructure fund I4B and PPP investor EPICO – a joint venture of PMV and RebelGroup. AG Insurance is a founding member of I4B.
The total cost is about €715m, excluding VAT. The road PPP will rejuvenate Ghent’s ringway, which connects the city to its port with some 30km of road and 20km of new bicycle paths to be added to the existing ring road. The road will be available from 2030.
De Werkvennootschap awarded the sponsors preferred bidder status in August 2021 but slower-than-expected permitting continues to be a blocking factor in Belgium’s PPPs. The debt financing was extended every six months but eventually expired, leading to a new debt competition being run in January.
The Belgian government signed off on the award decision on March 22 and financial close was reached on May 7.
Flemish law firm Eubelius advised De Werkvennootschap on the structuring, awarding and implementation of the project. Law firm A&O Shearman supported the sponsors. The lenders were advised by Linklaters with Infrata as technical adviser.
Telecoms Deal of the Year – XpFibre
Altice France’s fibre builder and operator XpFibre refinanced its existing debt with a €5.775bn platform financing including a senior term facility, bridge-to-US private placement, and institutional notes raised from banks and institutional lenders.
XpFibre is a fibre-to-the-home wholesale network operator under concession model in low to medium-density areas across France. Its footprint covers some 7.2m homes. The financing aimed to align the capital structure with the business’s utility-like nature as well as refinancing existing debt at the level of various SPVs, along with optimising the capital structure.
The utility-like infrastructure platform reflects the mature, brownfield nature of the company, which is supported by long-term contracts and a protective regulatory regime.
Underwriters and bookrunners were Natixis, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, ING, and Credit Agricole. Five banks joined as cornerstone lenders and include NatWest, La Banque Postale, ABN AMRO, LBBW and NAB. The institutional lenders include Aviva, Macquarie, Barings and Samsung.
The seven-year facilities include a €2.85bn term loan A, a €875m capex term loan to support the end of the roll-out, a €350m debt service reserve facility, and a €200m working capital facility – all with bullet repayments.
Alongside is a two-year €1.5bn bridge-to-private placement, which was refinanced with an almost €1.2bn US and Europe private placement that closed in November. The debt has maturities across 2034, 2037, and 2040. XpFibre plans to refinance the remaining balance of the bridge through additional placements in early 2025.
Along with the deal’s investment-grade-like structure the PP has investment-grade ratings from S&P and DBRS. XpFibre was advised by BNP Paribas as financial and ratings adviser, underwriter and bookrunner as well as joint active global PP agent, a role it held alongside MUFG.
XpFibre received financial advice from DC Advisory and legal support from Latham & Watkins. Lenders received legal support from A&O Shearman. The deal uses a fiducie, a French trust equivalent, over XpFibre’s shares that improve the position of the secured creditors under French bankruptcy law. Natixis acted as fiduciary agent.
Altice France owns 50.01% of XpFibre while OMERS holds 29.04%, Allianz has 13.45% and AXA IM Alts hold 7.5%.
Portfolio Deal of the Year – Sonnedix
JP Morgan Asset Management-backed IPP Sonnedix has completed the €3.25bn refinancing of its European solar portfolio including fresh capital to repower and hybridise its operating assets. The deal was completed via two transactions with the lion’s share, a €2.5bn package, closed in December.
That refinances a 1.1GW portfolio of operational renewable assets in Spain, Italy and France, consolidating 44 project financings. They are backed by feed-in tariffs or equivalent regulatory support and power purchase agreements.
The offtakes account for 90% of the portfolio’s generation although the projects all feature a “residual merchant” amount of exposure on top of the commercial PPAs, CEO Axel Thiemann told PFI. The package also supports the refinancing of 300MW of UK solar plants that are under construction and due to come online in 2025.
The package is split between around €2bn of term loans, a €350m revolving credit facility, and a €75m letter of credit facility. The RCF provides flexibility and can be used for a variety of growth purposes but will be primarily deployed for repowering and hybridisation, according to Thiemann. Sonnedix is in the process of permitting for storage on a number of its assets.
Assets that have been operating since 2010 and onwards are also coming up to replacement age and, if the local regulations allow, Sonnedix intends to replace aging panels with new ones to achieve higher efficiencies and capacities.
Bookrunners and MLAs included Credit Agricole CIB, Santander, Bank of China, ANZ, HSBC, Bank of America, Intesa Sanpaolo, and NatWest. MLAs were ING, La Banque Postale and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Arrangers were CIBC, Kutxabank, Sabadell and Unicaja. Balloon maturities on the term debt are at seven, 10, and 14 years. The RCF has a seven-year tenor.
The other part of the transaction closed in November and sees CaixaBank providing €750m to refinance Sonnedix’s regulated 197MW portfolio in Spain, consolidating seven financings.
The perimeter includes legacy assets that began operating in the 2008–2012 period and are backed by 30-year regulated tariffs, giving them lifetimes into the late 2030s and early 2040s. The tenor is on “very attractive terms” and the debt is “mostly amortising”, Thiemann said.
On the €2.5bn transaction Sonnedix received financial advice from Credit Agricole and Santander, and legal advice from A&O Shearman. The lenders received legal advice from White & Case. DNV was technical adviser, EY provided model audit and tax due diligence. Howden was insurance adviser and Centrus was hedging adviser. Watson Farley & Williams was legal adviser to the existing lenders.
For the €750m deal, Sonnedix received legal advice from Watson Farley & Williams with Centrus as hedging adviser, and EY as tax and accounting adviser. CaixaBank received legal advice from Gomez-Acebo & Pombo and Deloitte was model auditor.
Sonnedix has over 3.5GW of operating capacity in its global portfolio along with a development pipeline of more than 6.6GW across France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Chile, the US and the UK. It has a further 983MW under construction. Almost 1GW of the company’s global pipeline is co-located battery storage.
Power Deal of the Year – BNZ
Nuveen-backed IPP BNZ’s €680m portfolio financing of a 1.7GW solar pipeline was backed by a full equity replacement debt package structured with a holdco, soft mini-perm and a warehouse facility. The single facility is dispatchable across Spain, Portugal and Italy and has flexible power purchase agreement terms and accommodation for merchant risk. The structure also has provision for the possible addition of batteries to the portfolio later.
BNZ’s financing comprises a €420m green loan, the warehousing facility, split across a senior credit facility and auxiliary tranches from a syndicate of European commercial banks plus a €260m holdco debt facility backed by private equity investors. Debt pricing is less than 200bp over Euribor with most of the debt swapped. The tenor is around seven years with one of the tranches longer than the other.
The commercial banks include ABN AMRO, Intesa Sanpaolo, NatWest, SMBC and Bankinter, and the EIB has contributed a tranche under the InvestEU programme. The EIB took about half of the €420m with the remaining banks’ ticket sizes approximately equal. Funds managed by Ares Management, including its Infrastructure Debt Fund and US Direct Lending Fund, provided the entirety of the holdco debt facility.
BNZ received debt advice from Akereos Capital, which acted as sole arranger and structurer, and legal advice from Linklaters. The senior lenders were supported by Clifford Chance and Ares was advised by Ashurst. Palmer is the acting agent for the senior lender club and alterDomus the agent for Ares Management.
Other legal and tax advice was provided by Garrigues, Gianni & Origoni, EY and Mazars with technical consulting by Enertis, EOS Consulting and Everoze. AON provided insurance advice and ESG advisory was done by DNV and TAUW Group.
BNZ was founded in 2021 and aims to deploy a portfolio of more than 1.7GW of solar across Southern Europe by the end of 2026. The IPP operates a 74MW solar portfolio in Cadiz in Spain and has an advanced stage pipeline exceeding 260MW in the country. It is completing construction of a 135MW portfolio in Italy's Lazio region and it is due to start building the 50MW Gemunde solar project in Portugal.
EV Deal of the Year – IPlanet
E-charging infrastructure company IPlanet’s €560m debt facility supports the roll-out of an electric vehicle charging network across a portfolio of around 500 existing service stations in Italy with the sponsor looking to meet existing and future mobility needs.
IPlanet is a 50:50 joint venture between Macquarie Capital and fuel station operator Italiana Petroli, part of Gruppo Api, that aims to electrify service areas on urban and suburban roads.
The five-year debt package includes an acquisition facility, a green capex facility, and a revolving credit facility. It was joined by 11 lenders including Credit Agricole, MUFG, Rabobank, SMBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Bank of China, Nomura, BBVA, ICBC, Banco BPM and BPER. They were all bookrunners on the green facility, with Credit Agricole and MUFG acting as sustainability coordinators. Deal close took place in April.
Proceeds from a core €340m tranche will be used to finance the acquisition of IPlanet by the JV BidCo from Macquarie and IP. A €200m tranche will cover the construction of the first 300 charging stations by 2027. A €20m portion will be disbursed as a five-year revolver covering general corporate purposes.
The long-term plan for IPlanet is to have 500 operational fast or ultra-fast charging stations of 150kW and 300kW by 2032 and for most of the chargers to be powered by on-site solar panels and hybridised with battery storage systems.
IPlanet received financial advice from Mediobanca and legal advice from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and the lenders were supported by Ashurst. Gatti Pavesi Bianchi Ludovici provided legal due diligence, BCG provided commercial advice, Arcadis provided technical advice, EY provided financial and tax advice, and Marsh was on insurance.
Data Centre Deal of the Year – Ark Data Centres
Ark Data Centres financed its latest UK data centre deals on a single asset project financed based approach. The evolving data centre financial market has seen a variety of models from real estate funding to asset backed deals. But Ark Data has crafted a project finance approach as part of its growth strategy.
In November, it closed two £200m project financing packages via ING for Union Park 2 and Union Park 3, the next phases of their data centre campus in Hayes near London. Union Park 1 was financed via a similar deal last year. The company is expected to finance Union Park 4 and 5 at a later date with a similar approach.
The five-year loans were provided by financial adviser ING, ABN AMRO, Credit Agricole, NordLB, NIBC and AXA. Clifford Chance. CMS and Norton Rose Fulbright provided legal advice.
The financings benefit from there being economies of scale on the campus but each part of the campus has its own SPV, giving the sponsor, the banks and anchor tenant control over each deal. The financings are not co-dependent on each other apart from being on the same campus. The structure allows for a multiple of facilities rather than one large deal, which gives sponsors flexibility and provides protections for banks and anchor tenants.
In 2022, Ark closed a £700m portfolio project financing led by ING to expand its data centre campuses and refinance a £450m facility raised in 2019. ING underwrote the deal alongside Bank of America as bookrunning MLAs. It was syndicated to NordLB, ABN AMRO, Lloyds, Credit Agricole and Hamburg Commercial Bank as MLAs; Sabadell, NIBC and HSBC as lead arrangers and Investec as arranger.
In March 2023 it was reported that the company was being sold with HRL Morrison a favourite to buy, but nothing has been heard since. The company is led by Huw Owen and has sites around London and one near Bath, Somerset. Ark owns 74.9% of Crown Hosting Data Centres, a joint venture between Ark and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. Elliott Management is the biggest shareholder in Ark.
LNG Deal of the Year – Hanseatic Energy
The Hanseatic Energy Hub land-based LNG regasification terminal in Stade near Hamburg is the first project-financed land-based LNG terminal in Germany.
It is a key project for the LNG and energy sector in Western Europe following the current political circumstances and the closure of the Nord Stream pipelines supplying gas to Germany and Europe. In addition it is the first fully privately financed LNG in Germany.
Key offtakers for the terminal capacity include Germany based entities EnBW and Securing Energy for Europe and Czech company CEZ.
In a first expansion phase, an emission-free LNG terminal is to be put into operation. As well as LNG it will be an import terminal for synthetic natural gas and liquefied biomethane. This will later be followed by ammonia as a carbon-neutral, hydrogen-based energy carrier. Total capacity is 13.3bcm of LNG per year.
The FSRU Energos Force, one of five floating LNG terminals chartered by Germany’s federal government and on site since March 2024, will continue to secure gas supply in the short term until the land-based terminal is operational.
Tecnicas Reunidas, FCC and Enka are the EPC contractors. Planned commissioning is set for 2027. The project will supply Dow with gas at its 3mtpa Stade chemical plant, its largest in Germany, and in return the terminal will be co-located with Dow's facilities.
Enagas is providing the technical direction of the construction and will be the terminal operator. It is a 15% shareholder in the scheme alongside investor Partners Group, Dow and the project’s original developer Buss Group.
The €1.6bn project was debt financed by a €1.4bn, 15-year loan provided by ABN AMRO, BBVA, Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas, ING, Korea Development Bank, Mizuho, Sabadell, SMBC, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered and UniCredit.
Rothschild, Clifford Chance and CMS Hasche Sigle advised the sponsors. A&O Shearman advised the lenders.
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
