Linklaters LLP has advised Speyside Renewable Energy Partnership Ltd on the successful development and financing of the Speyside combined heat and power plant project in Scotland. The construction of the project will be funded by a public bond issue, guaranteed by Infrastructure UK (“IUK”), which has been launched today. This will be the first project finance bond issue guaranteed by IUK in the biomass sector.

The sponsors of the Speyside CHP Project are UK Green Investment Bank plc (“GIB”), John Laing Investments Limited (“John Laing”) and Estover Energy Limited (“Estover”).

Richard Coar, Projects partner at Linklaters, said: “Transactions such as Speyside are crucial in supporting both the growth of the UK’s low carbon economy and in helping to meet the 2020 targets. However, the financing of biomass transactions continues to be challenging, with only a handful having been successfully closed since the Sleaford transaction on which we advised nearly two and a half years ago. The ability of these projects to access the capital markets in an efficient manner for the first time, together with debt and derivative products from experienced project finance banks, should certainly go a long way to addressing this challenge. We look forward to working with Estover, John Laing, GIB and our other clients to close a number of other biomass transactions prior to the end of the current Parliament.”

The Linklaters LLP team, which advised on all English law aspects of the transaction over the past two years, was led by Projects partner Richard Coar and included Capital Markets partner Julian Davies, Projects managing associates Hannah Bronwin, Neena Aynsley and Matt Honeyben, associate Fran Pilcher and Capital Markets associate Robert Flack.