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Biggest PPP supports a host of firms
HALF OF Australia’s top-tier law firms are advising the parties to the country’s largest public private partnership (PPP) to date — NSW’s Rolling Stock PPP valued at $3.6 billion. Clayton…
Lawyers Weekly
HALF OF Australia’s top-tier law firms are advising the parties to the country’s largest public private partnership (PPP) to date — NSW’s Rolling Stock PPP valued at $3.6 billion.
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Clayton Utz, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Blake Dawson Waldron and Malleson Stephen Jaques all worked on various aspects of the tender won by the Reliance Rail consortium, consisting of engineering services group Downer EDI, Babcock and Brown, ABN Amro Australia and AMP Capital Investors.
The consortium will finance, design, manufacture and maintain for 30 years 78, eight-carriage double-decker train sets for Sydney’s CityRail network.
The new carriages will replace 498 non air-conditioned carriages by 2013.
EDI Downer subsidiary EDI Rail was the manufacturer of the most recent additions to the CityRail fleet, the Millennium Trains.
Clayton Utz is acting for RailCorp, and its team, led by partners Doug Jones, Sergio Capelli and Owen Hayford, advised on all aspects of the tender process.
This included the call for expressions of interest and the shortlisting of bidders, the documentation for two requests for detailed proposals, as well as the debt and equity documentation.
Corrs acted for Downer EDI as principal sponsor of its bid for the project, and also acted for the Downer EDI Group on all contracts and significant sub-contracts to design, manufacture and maintain the trains.
Its team included lead partner Stephen Hibbert, as well as Boris Hristovski, Frank Lawson, Conway Restom, Eugenia Kolivos, Trevor Danos, Tim Barton, Andrew Pitney, Anthony Latimer, Alessandra Saltos and Dixon Hearder.
Blake Dawson Waldron is also acting for Reliance Rail, with Joanne Evans, a partner in the firm’s Sydney financial services group, heading its team.
Mallesons confirmed it acted for the “debt parties” on the deal. These include banks Westpac, National Australia Bank, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Citibank. Its team is led by partner Mark Upfold, supported by fellow partners Scott Gardiner, Dominic Bortoluzzi, Scott Farrell, Ian Edmonds-Wilson, Ken Astridge and Adam Wallwork.
In a statement, Reliance Rail’s project director, Greg Pauline, said it was the “largest train order in Australian history”, and EDI Rail’s “constructive working relationship with RailCorp” would “be essential to our successful delivery of the new trains … on time”.
Contractual and financial close of the deal is due to be finalised by the end of this year.
