21 March, 2014

Allen & Overy acted as Australian and international counsel to the export credit agencies and commercial lenders on the financing of the integrated Roy Hill iron ore project, the world’s largest project financing in the mining sector. The project sponsors, namely Hancock Prospecting, Marubeni, POSCO and CSC recently announced the finalisation of the USD 7.2bn project financing arrangements, which completes the funding package required to construct the USD 10bn project.

Allen & Overy worked closely with the export credit agencies, namely Export-Import Bank of Korea, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance and Export-Import Bank of the United States, and the 19 commercial banks to negotiate, document and complete this transaction.

Adam Stapledon, the Sydney-based partner who led the Allen & Overy team, said: “We are pleased to have been involved in what is a ground breaking and strategically important project.  This deal will see Australia expand its capacity to supply a key ingredient for infrastructure development globally. The structuring and risk allocation of the deal were complex and it was one of the first mega projects to be financed without a full completion guarantee from sponsors.”

“Our ability to mobilise high performing teams in each of the home jurisdictions of the key lenders, including in Australia, contributed towards signing the deal in a much shorter timeframe than is the case for similar transactions.” he said.

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