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Allens has advised a syndicate of 22 financiers on the senior project financing facilities of Queensland’s Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal project in Gladstone.
Firm: Allens (financing syndicate)
Value: US$2.5 billion
Area: Corporate, Energy and resources
Key players: Allens’ partner Nicholas Adkins led the deal, with partner Chris Prestwich, senior associate Michael Gibling, associates Jacques McElhone and Luke Leybourne and lawyer Kate Buchanan all involved.
Deal significance: Allens has worked closely with the financing syndicate and its advisers over the last two years, navigating a variety of issues which made the refinancing challenging. This included insolvency of three of the eight take-or-pay shippers that underpin the financing structure, and more generally, a difficult coal asset market.
The Wiggins Island Coal Export terminal project in Gladstone, Queensland is worth US$3.5 billion.
Allens has called the deal “one of the largest and most significant restructuring and refinancing transactions in the Australian infrastructure market in recent years.”
Uniquely, this deal required WICET to seek court approval for the refinancing using a solvent creditors’ scheme of arrangement to bind all senior financiers due to them being unable to reach a unanimous agreement in relation to the extension’s terms. This was done with the support of a majority of the senior financiers.
The refinancing also needed to be completed “in the context of a very complex capital structure, which includes both mezzanine debt (GiLTS) and preference shares (WIPS) which would remain in the structure following the refinancing,” according to Allens.
Allens’ team leader Nicholas Adkins said the refinancing was “a huge team effort, over several years.”
“We are extremely proud to have worked with a great group of financiers and WICET to assist in navigating the project through the various challenges it faced and complete the successful senior refinancing,” he continued.
Partner Christ Prestwich, who led the creditors’ scheme and restructuring aspects of the transaction said “the use of a creditors’ scheme of arrangement in this manner is quite rare in the Australian market, and it will be interesting to see if it is deployed in similar transactions in the future.”
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Grace Ormsby
