White & Case Advises ECAs and Lenders on €2.7 Billion Financing of Yunlin Offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised the export credit agencies (ECAs) and a large syndicate of international and Taiwanese commercial banks on the €2.7 billion (NT$94 billion) project financing of German developer wpd AG's Yunlin offshore wind project in Taiwan.

"Taiwan is at the forefront of the surging offshore wind sector in Asia-Pacific and Yunlin has set a new benchmark for offshore wind development in the region," said White & Case partner Brendan Quinn, Head of Project Finance in Asia Pacific. "Our work on Yunlin has enabled our team to bring the Firm's global experience to the Asia-Pacific offshore wind market."

White & Case partner Fergus Smith said: "This transaction demonstrates the gaining strength of the offshore wind sector in the region – a sector which is firing in Taiwan and emerging with confidence in Korea, Japan, Australia and Vietnam. We are currently advising clients across a pipeline of offshore wind projects in each of these jurisdictions with a combined planned capacity of more than 4.5 GW. It's an exciting time for the renewables market in the region."

White & Case partner Florian Degenhardt said: "White & Case has a long standing relationship with wpd, and this transaction leveraged our depth of experience in the European offshore wind sector to support wpd on its first offshore wind project in Asia-Pacific."

The 640 MW Yunlin project is the largest offshore wind farm in Asia-Pacific to reach financial close to date. Located eight kilometers off the coast of Yunlin County in western Taiwan, it comprises 80 Siemens Gamesa turbines of the 8 MW class and is being developed by wpd in two phases, with the first phase scheduled to be commissioned by 2020 and the second phase in 2021. The Yunlin project is 73 percent owned by wpd and 27 percent owned by a Sojitz Corp-led consortium.

The finance parties include ECAs EKF (Denmark), Euler Hermes (Germany) and Atradius (Netherlands), coverage provider KfW IPEX-Bank and commercial banks consisting of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (also financial adviser for the project), BNP Paribas, Cathay United Bank, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, CTBC Bank, Deutsche Bank, DBS Bank, E-SUN Commercial Bank, ING Bank, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Natixis, OCBC, Siemens Bank, Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank and Taipei Fubon Bank.

The White & Case team in Asia-Pacific and Germany that advised on the transaction was led by partners Brendan Quinn, Fergus Smith, Florian Degenhardt and Andrew Clark, supported by Alexis Fong, Alena Kosmin, Beate Treibmann, Andrea Castle, Paul Marshall, Mikio Kobayashi, Candice Ota, Donovan Ang, Hilary Cure, Callum Fitzpatrick, Dion English, Matthias Grigoleit, Matthias Bochum, Max Sergelius, Kirsty Ha, Yushu Xie and Naomi Midha.

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