Luthra & Luthra has closed two project finance deals out of Delhi and Mumbai this week, acting on the Rs 1,497 crores ($325m) Gujarat road development project and the Rs 4,000 crore ($850m) syndicated term loan for Cairn India to develop oil fields.
Luthra & Luthra Mumbai partner Vijaya Rao and group head Bikash Jhawar assisted the lenders led by IDBI Bank.
The project company L&T Ahmedabad Maliya Tollway took its legal advice L&T Infra Chennai legal head Chandra Sekharan, as both companies are promoted by Larsen & Toubro.
At Luthra the team also consisted of associates Pulkit Sharma, Sneha Jha and Pradyumna Kokil.
Rao said: "On the road building side that some time back we've seen some road projects not being financed because of issues with the concession agreements.
She explained that concession agreements have become more accepted in road building projects in recent years by improving the substitution rights for lenders in the absence ofbeing able to take full security over all the assets.
"But I personally feel that L&T is a big brand name and one of the road projects in Gujarat being financed by one of the leading banks IDBI is a good sign that banks are open to financing road projects," added Rao.
The firm also advised Cairn India on its rupee denominated syndicated loan to finance the development of various Rajasthan oilfields.
The loan was provided by State Bank of India, which was advised by Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi projects partner Jatin Aneja.
Luthra's team was led by Delhi projects partners Sameen Vyas and group head Piyush Mishra. Associates Karan Mitroo, Siddhartha Srivastava, Samar Jha and Arunava Mukherjee also assisted on the transaction.
Luthra & Luthra was recently ranked as the top global legal adviser in project finance by data provider Dealogic, and alongside India Law Services and Amarchand Mangaldas trumping all other international firms such as White & Case, Clifford Chance, DLA Piper and Latham & Watkins.
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Not so well versed with law and project finance in particuar. How does it work? As in there are developers, contractors and lenders. But what if the company you're acting for has won a tender to construct, say, a power plant. So are you acting for the developer or the contractor? Because if the tender winner is the developer then what does that make the government? Because a lot of projects that are newly announced in the news dailies often talk about how an XYZ state government will award contracts to suppliers in constructing a particular project. So who is the developer here? Is it the state government or is it the ABC company that will eventually construct it as per the contract? But then again, the developer will most likely sub-contract the construction to specialist firms. So what does that make the ABC company?
If so, then when news articles appear on PSUs sourcing materials from suppliers through a tender, are we to assume that the project finance component has already been acted upon by a law firm (since the tender is merely an EPC) and also because the EPC component wouldn't come into the picture unless the PSU has the resources available?
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