King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised financiers in relation to the A$9.7bn acquisition of the 50 year lease of the Port of Melbourne, Australia’s largest container and cargo port by the Lonsdale Consortium comprising the Future Fund, QIC, Global Infrastructure Partners and OMERS .

The KWM team, led by Partner Claire Rogers with support from Solicitor Amy Maguire, advised a bank club consisting of 17 banks in relation to the submission of a fully committed and documented financing package for the acquisition.

“We are pleased to have supported our clients on this landmark transaction which represents one of the largest acquisitions in the Australian market this year”, said Claire.

This is the latest in a series of significant project finance transactions KWM has acted on, recent examples include acting for Transurban Queensland in relation to their successful acquisition of the Airport Link Tollroad, acting for the CKI in relation to the Ausgrid privatisation; acting for QIC on their successful acquisition of the Iona Gas Storage facility and acting for QIC on their successful participation in the AGL renewable fund. Claire Rogers and Peter Doyle are also acting for the lenders to EvolutionRail, the recently announced preferred bidding consortium on the High Capacity Metro Trains PPP.