Industries

Financial Services

Bell Dewar's Financial Services Industry Group boasts an exceptional track-record in acting on innovative, domestic and multi-jurisdictional deals - it undoubtedly has one of the most experienced project finance groups of any South African law firm.

It has become imperative for any project finance team in today's environment to be creative and innovative. Increasingly, the players in the project finance market are becoming more sophisticated and demanding; and sponsors and financiers are looking to ever more complex and sophisticated project structures to extract the maximum benefit obtainable from projects. The group is on the cutting edge of these project transactions that can combine limited recourse financing with other disciplines, such as asset acquisitions, project bonds, securitisation of project equity streams and loan portfolios, leasing and derivatives products.

The group is ideally suited to tackle the complexities inherent in project finance transactions to produce any required complex, highly structured finance structure.

The firm acts for lenders, sponsors and governmental/public sector bodies across the range of industry sectors such as transportation, infrastructure, oil and gas, power, telecommunications and mining and metals.

The group recognises the importance of addressing historical imbalances in the community and in the commercial sector and has therefore gained substantial experience in structuring financial transactions encompassing black empowerment partners and deals. Bell Dewar was involved in the first black empowerment project finance mining venture, which is subsequently still the largest such transaction to date.

The first major project finance transaction in South Africa was the Maputo Corridor N4 Toll Road Project, where the group acted for the sponsors. Since then the group has been involved in, amongst others, the N4 Bakwena Platinum Toll Highway Project, where we acted for the financiers and the New Coal Project, a black empowerment project, where Eyesizwe Coal won the tender to acquire 80% of the New Coal assets from Anglo Coal and Ingwe.

The group has extensive expertise in infrastructure development projects, concessions and management contracts. We also advise on the financial and other related aspects of the new mining legislation and the mining charter. Bell Dewar is a member of the International Project Finance Association (IPFA).

Contact: Lara Bezuidenhoudt

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