King & Wood Mallesons has assisted a syndicate of banks (comprising Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Agricole CIB Australia Limited, ING Bank (Australia) Limited, ING Bank N.V., Singapore Branch, National Australia Bank, Natixis, Hong Kong branch and Westpac Banking Corporation) to reach financial close in respect of the $1.73B financing of Stage 1 of the Westconnex Motorway. 

Stage 1 of the Westconnex Motorway comprises the widening of the existing M4 motorway and the development of a new 5.5 kilometre long tunnel, with three lanes in each direction, from Parramatta Road to Haberfield.

This important milestone in the development of the Westconnex Motorway will help the NSW Government realise its vision for Sydney to create the approx $16.8 billion and more than 30 kilometre WestConnex Motorway to link Sydney’s west and south-west with the city, airport and port.

This major transaction was successfully achieved 12 months after the same KWM team closed the financing of Stage 2 of the Westconnex Motorway (being the upgrade of the existing M5 interchange at King Georges Road and building the "New M5" between the M5 at Beverly Hills and St Peters).

Lead finance partner, Rebecca Finkelstein said “In the space of 12 months we are pleased that our infrastructure and finance teams have assisted the banks in helping Sydney Motorway Corporation meet its capital objectives by raising well over $3B in bank debt for the first two stages of the Westconnex project.”

Mark Upfold, KWM’s infrastructure leader who worked with Rebecca and the team noted “What I think sets us apart in the infrastructure space is our ability to harness expertise across the firm and deploy that rapidly to meet the needs of the transaction. Stage 1 was an example where our finance, derivative, environment and planning, construction, and procurement experts were mobilised and closed the project financing inside a challenging 3 month period.”

The KWM team was led by two partners from our infrastructure team; Rebecca Finkelstein and Mark Upfold, with support provided by Scott Budd (partner - construction) and Anne-Marie Neagle (partner - derivatives), Gareth Howe (senior associate) and solicitors Sarah De Ceglie, Meadhbh Cacciaguidi-Fahy, Freek Veldhoen, Lauren Murphy and Sam Monk.