King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) acted for all financiers, including as Australian counsel for the USPP noteholders, to the Netflow consortium – comprising Cintra, Plenary, WBHO Infrastructure, Amey and Broadspectrum – on the Victorian Government's A$1.8 billion Western Roads Upgrade project.
The public-private partnership represents Victoria's largest single investment in arterial roads to date and includes eight high-priority road upgrades, road widenings, intersection upgrades, almost 30 kilometres of duplicated road and more than 260 kilometres of road rehabilitation and maintenance across Melbourne's west. Construction is expected to commence in the first half of 2018.
The KWM team, led by Claire Rogers and Peter Doyle, advised the USPP noteholders and a bank club consisting of Westpac, Bank of China, ICBC and Mizuho. Legal support was provided by Senior Associates Catherine Zahra and Chris Allfrey and Solicitors Amy Maguire and Brendon Francis.
Commenting on the matter, Claire Rogers said, "We are proud to have supported our clients on this landmark transaction, which represents Australia's first greenfield bond financing for a public-private partnership since the GFC".
"KWM has a strong track record advising on significant PPP transactions, which made the firm ideally positioned to act on this first of its kind arterial roads project."
This is the latest in a series of significant PPP transactions KWM has acted on, recent examples include acting for the NorthernPathways Consortium comprising John Laing, John Holland and Serco on the New Grafton Correctional Centre PPP and acting for the lenders on the Plenary-led High Capacity Metro Trains PPP.