China Practice — Finance and Project Finance

Our China Team lawyers have served as counsel on significant finance matters throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including acquisition finance, project finance, public/private partnerships, leasing transactions and restructurings. In 2006, Asialaw Leading Lawyers selected Christopher Stephens, the Partner-in-Charge of our China Team, as "one of the most highly acclaimed legal experts in the Asia-Pacific region" in the field of Capital Markets/Corporate Finance.  Examples of the team's experience include representing:

• Credit Suisse on the offshore security for its guaranteed US$100 million financing of the Shanghai Square Project, a 38-storey, 80,000-square-meter office and retail project in Shanghai.  This project received the "Real Estate and Construction Deal of the Year" award in 2006 from Asian Legal Business, which recognized the advanced level of legal services required to complete financings that were structured as dual-currency onshore and offshore loans involving a complex series of offshore security arrangements that crossed four jurisdictions.
• Royal Vopak in the structuring, placement and documentation of an RMB1.7 billion (US$200 million) dual-currency, six-tranche project financing for a state-of-the-art liquefied chemical and oil products storage and logistics facility in Shanghai. This project received the 2005 "Logistics Deal of the Year" award from Euromoney and is the central feature of the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park, which is planned to be one of the largest and most integrated chemical and petrochemical production and logistics bases in Asia.    
• BP p.l.c., the successful bidder, in an eight-sponsor US$800 million project to acquire and construct an LNG terminal and trunkline project in Guangdong, China, for regassification and distribution of natural gas in China, including the design of the project financing and security structure.
• Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway Corporation in the structuring and documentation of two public/private partnership investments (Beijing and Shenzhen) for mass transit rail lines and adjacent real estate development projects, including issues relating to land rights acquisition, utilities, relocation of residents and structures, construction contracting and risk sharing/mitigation in all phases of planning, design, bidding, contracting, financing and completion.
• General Motors Corporation and its partner in the structuring and execution of the largest project financings in China (at the time), consisting of a dual-currency, multiple-tranche US$1.52 billion project financing for the acquisition and construction of a Buick plant in Shanghai.  The 35 international banks and nine PRC banks that comprised the lending group agreed to lend US$472 million and the RMB equivalent of US$350 million under a series of five secured, multicurrency loan agreements. At the time, the project represented:
• the largest Sino-U.S. joint venture;
• the largest PRC project financed solely by commercial banks; and
• the largest U.S. dollar and RMB syndication.

The transaction also included many novel features, such as the unique and limited nature of the recourse to the sponsors, the design of the collateral package and the structure of intercreditor arrangements.

• Corporación IMPSA S.A. and Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona S.A. in the restructuring, acquisition and divestiture of the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan Power Complex in Laguna, Philippines.  (The transaction was selected as an "M&A Deal of the Year" by Asian Counsel in 2006 and was described in the International Financial Law Review as "a remarkable case study in divestiture strategy.")
• Florens Container Corp., (the world's third largest container-leasing company) on more than 10 equipment financing and finance leveraged-leasing transactions aggregating nearly US$2 billion, including one of Asia's largest securitizations, a US$870 million transaction involving the sale of marine containers and the respective container lease agreements in more than 35 countries.
• Stora Enso Oyj, the world's largest paper and pulp producer, on the restructuring of a series of RMB commercial bank facilities for a mill in Qingdao, China, and related land use conveyance and security issues.
• Majority joint venture partner in the structuring and financing of the US$200 million toll road connecting the Shanghai airport to the Shanghai ring road.
• Consortium lender in connection with the proposed financing of the Pudong Airport Toll Road in Shanghai.
• General Motors Corporation on the restructuring and documentation of a multicurrency project financing of its truck manufacturing facility in Shenyang, China.
• Wachovia Bank, N.A. in the acquisition financing by a major Chinese consumer goods manufacturer, involving security and mortgaged property and land-use issues in multiple jurisdictions.
• Commerzbank AG, Hong Kong Branch, in a series of secured commercial lending transactions involving offshore borrowers and guarantors and collateral security in Hong Kong, China, North America and Central America.
• COSCO Pacific Limited, the world's fifth-largest shipping company, on numerous secured and unsecured financing transactions during the past eight years, including its commercial paper program, numerous equipment financings and acquisition financings relating to maritime terminal operating companies and facilities in Qingdao, Shanghai, Busan, Europe, the Middle East and Central America.
• ING Bank on secured financings in China in the marine-container sector, including leasing companies and manufacturers and tax-structured synthetic lease financing transactions.
• Asian Development Bank as an equity investor and senior lender in the Changsha coal-fired power plant project financing, one of the first competitively bid Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) power projects in China.
• China Development Finance Company (Hong Kong) Limited and the Asian Development Bank in connection with a US$190 million financing for the Mei Zhou Wan coal-fired power plant in the Fujian Province.
• China Construction Bank, as a security agent and renminbi lender, in the financing of a 1,200 MW coal-fired project.
• Sponsors of a US$1.3 billion gas pipeline project from Hainan Island to Hong Kong.
• Asian Development Bank in connection with the Chengdu No. 6 Water Plant B Project in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, which was the first application in China of a BOT structure in the water sector.
• Sumitomo Corporation on the acquisition and restructuring of the 2 x 660 MW Tanjung Jati B power station in Java, Indonesia.
• The "London Club" of more than 60 commercial banks in successive restructurings of four separate "jumbo loans" of more than US$1.5 billion of dollar- and yen-denominated sovereign debt extended to the Republic of Indonesia.

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