Ashurst has acted as financiers counsel to the Consortium who successfully won the bid to the exclusive 35 year concession, by the NSW Government, to operate the titling and registry services of the Land and Property Information (LPI).

The Consortium, comprised of Hastings Funds Management, First State Super and the Royal Bank of Scotland's pension fund, successfully won the bid to operate LPI in April 2017, and through the payment of the concession asset price on 30 June 2017, completed the $2.6 billion transaction.

The concession asset price was debt and equity funded. The debt funding was provided by a syndicate of 11 onshore and offshore banks. The financing involved entry into forward dated collateralised interest rate swaps, negotiated with a majority of the syndicate banks.

The NSW Government will invest $1 billion of the proceeds into upgrading three Sydney stadiums and the remaining $1.6 billion will be spend on other state infrastructure projects. The LPI is the largest state land title registry in Australia and the first to be privatised.

Lead partner Martin Coleman said: "As the first of the registries to be commercialised in Australia, it presented the consortium and financiers with interesting funding, IP, privacy and compensation issues in this new sector. It was a pleasure to act for the bank group in financing proven sponsors of the strength of Hastings Funds Management and First State Super."

The Ashurst team was led by partners Martin Coleman (Global Loans) and David Mason (Project Finance). They were assisted by lawyer Kavisha Bilimoria (Global Markets) and by counsel Trent Chugg, lawyer Joey Pak and graduate Evangeline Schumacher (Global Loans).