Bank of the Year – MUFG
MUFG had a stellar year in the global project finance market driven by its leading role in the booming US market. But the US is not the only area where MUFG has come out on top. It currently tops the global project bonds chart and is second in the Asia Pacific loans table.
Japanese banks have been some of the first to have been exposed to the new tighter Basel 3.1/4 regulations, but this has not stopped them backing the project finance sector. Senior management considers project finance a key global franchise, and the firm has committed significant resources to the business.
The bank has more than 300 professionals spread across the globe – 133 in the US in Los Angeles and New York, 99 in Europe in London, Frankfurt and Paris, 93 in Tokyo, 44 in Singapore and 29 in Sydney and Melbourne.
MUFG has closed around 150 deals in the Americas and taken a leading role in the growth areas of the year – data centres and LNG. It has put a lot of capital behind the data centre sector with some big underwriters.
For instance, on the Blue Owl Capital/Stack US$18bn project finance loan backing a 1.28GW data centre in Don Ana Country, New Mexico, it was the administrative agent, an initial coordinating lead arranger, joint bookrunner, structuring bank and documentation agent.
In Singapore it was an initial underwriter on the S$2.248bn (US$1.74bn) construction facility for AirTrunk’s 80MW greenfield project in Singapore.
The US LNG project financing sector has seen record volumes this year. MUFG was the sole financial adviser, admin agent and deal contingent hedge provider on the US$8bn NextDecade Rio Grande trains four and five financings which were transacted within a month of each other.
The bank’s main gas deal outside the US this year involved advising Saudi Aramco on the sale of a 49% stake in the Jafurah Midstream Gas Company which holds the midstream facilities associated with the Jafurah gas field. The stake was bought by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners backed by a US$10bn debt financing.
Offshore wind had a more challenging year this year in terms of dealflow but MUFG was central to two of the standout deals – East Anglia 3 and Inch Cape. It was joint financial adviser on the £3.6bn East Anglia deal which involved Iberdrola’s first offshore wind project financing and it was the financial adviser on the ESB/Red Rock £2.7bn financing. Both deals took some time to put together, particularly Inch Cape.
The US renewables market has been spurred on by the passing of the One Big Beautiful Act setting deadlines for construction starts. MUFG has been involved in a whole range of deals for sponsors such as Greenalia, J Power, Sunrayer, Intersect, Quantum Solar & Storage and Transgrid Energy.
It has backed the M&A deals in the gas fired power sector and was coordinating lead arranger, deal contingent hedge provider and admin agent on one of the first of the new wave of gas fired plants – Kindle Energy’s 609MW Wolf Summit scheme in West Virginia.
Erik Codrington is the international head of the business, apart from Tokyo, in New York and is co-head of the Americas alongside Alex Wernberg. Phillip Hall leads the EMEA business and Paul Martin leads the Australia team. A new head is currently being hired in Singapore. Tetsuo Kagaya heads the team in Tokyo.
Bond House of the Year – SMBC
The way projects are financed keeps changing and classic long-term, collateral-backed debt is not the only way to get a PF deal down the line these days. Everyone is catching up on the new trends but SMBC understood the shift and combined structuring expertise with broad distribution capabilities across both the private placement and public bond spheres.
With integrated coverage spanning New York, London, Paris and Australia, it delivered consistently across formats and geographies, positioning the firm as a key partner for infrastructure sponsors navigating increasingly complex financing needs.
At the centre of the bond house is a dedicated US private placement team in New York with a strong track record across core infrastructure sectors and cross-border transactions, complemented by a public project bond team with specialised rating advisory capabilities.
In EMEA, SMBC operates an Infrastructure and Real Assets Capital Markets platform out of London and Paris with a focus on origination, structuring and execution of infrastructure debt across underwritten loans, private placements, and public bonds. The EMEA team operates on a format agnostic approach which ensures flexibility for issuers and investors alike, supported by full-spectrum access to private placement investors in North America and Europe.
Coordination between the US and EMEA teams is key in SMBC’s strategy and that has been reflected in a series of successful cross-border placements for international sponsors.
In Europe, SMBC led a €2bn private placement for Vantage Towers, marking the first tower infrastructure deal in the private market and the largest euro-denominated USPP on record. The transaction featured a cross-border investor mix spanning the US, UK and Europe.
SMBC has been at the forefront of innovation in new sectors and structures. A notable example was its role leading the first master trust for a data centre portfolio in the project bond market. This inaugural USPP transaction, structured under a master trust for three data centres totalled US$1.65bn across five- to ten-year interest-only tranches, monetising leases from high-quality hyperscale tenants. The issuance attracted over US$2.4bn in orders from a broad investor base.
As ratings adviser, SMBC worked closely with major agencies to position the asset class within infrastructure methodologies and actively engaged the market through panels, roundtables and teach-ins across the US and Europe.
Beyond digital infrastructure, SMBC executed transactions globally across multiple sectors and regions, including a US$1.39bn financing for Pluto LNG in Western Australia, US$700m for Switzerland-based Impala Terminals, and US$385m for Canyon Peak Power in the US.
Public markets were equally active for SMBC in 2025. The firm led secured transactions for major UK airports including London Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester Airport Group, as well as Bazalgette Finance’s Thames Tideway Tunnel project.
In the US, SMBC acted as bookrunner on a five-tranche US$6bn offering for Foundry JV Holdco, linked to semiconductor manufacturing facilities under construction in partnership with Intel.
Other standout transactions included Safe Harbor Marinas’ Project Poseidon, a portfolio financing for 40 ground-lease marinas across the US, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and the Mediterranean. The deal required dual-currency issuance in US dollars and euros and introduced a new asset class combining transportation and storage characteristics.
Additionally, SMBC structured financing for Kindle Energy’s 156MW Canyon Peak Power project in Colorado early in its construction phase, supported by a 25-year tolling agreement for 100% of capacity.
These transactions underscore SMBC’s ability to deliver solutions across emerging and established sectors and we are looking forward to see what 2026 brings for them.
Adviser of the Year – Credit Agricole
There is little new in world of project finance – well apart from the ongoing mega data centre financings which are the exception to the rule.
This year, however, there have other exceptions to the rule – new deals in new sectors. They have relied on traditional project finance structuring techniques but the deals represent some new tools in the kit box.
Credit Agricole has advised this year on a new style project financings for PPPs, carbon capture and sustainable aviation fuel. Plys two monster offshore wind farms.
The bank was the financial adviser on the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme, HARP, project which was financed in August. The project is a new kind of PPP to fund large scale water projects in the UK via the direct procurement for customers model designed by the sector regulator Ofwat.
The private sector water company United Utilities has let the concession contract to the Strabag/Equitix/GLIL consortium. The Lake District to Manchester water transmission project required £3bn in project finance. Credit Agricole advised the team from bid stage to financial close over a number of years.
Ofwat intends to roll the DPC concept across the sector and similar concession models are being planned for power transmission.
Nearby, in northwest England, the bank was the financial adviser in the HyNet carbon capture and storage project financing. Granted this deal was not unique, the Northern Endurance Partnership deals in the northeast closed late last year. But the financing process was run in parallel over the last few years. These schemes are the first carbon capture project financings. Credit Agricole raised £2.5bn for the Eni-led team.
The bank was involved in two of the largest offshore wind farm deals this year. It advised Iberdrola on its first project financing, the 1.4GW €5bn plus East Anglia Three deal. Iberdrola normally farms down stakes in its schemes in operation but on this deal decided to bring in Masdar as its 50% partner and raise a £3.6bn project financing.
The bank advised Orsted on the sale of a 50% stake in the 2.9GW Hornsea 3 project. The deal was important for Orsted given its issues in the US. The project is currently under construction and is the world’s largest offshore wind scheme. Apollo was bought in as the partner in a £4.5bn deal.
In addition, it advised Ocean Winds on its 390MW, €2bn BC Wind offshore deal in Poland. The 23-year deal was the last of the four major Polish offshore wind farm deals and is said to have attracted competitive terms. The EIB supplied €600m but otherwise the sponsors relied on commercial banks with no export credit cover.
Other standout advisories the bank was involved with included the sale of AGS Airports in a £1.5bn deal and seconds €1.3bn phase of the €3.8bn platform financing for pan European renewables developer Sonnedix.
The advisory team function comes under the energy and real assets group headed by Danielle Baron. Jean Francois Grandchamps heads energy and infrastructure and Matthew Norman heads advisory. Oliver Jennings, Andy Pheasant and Quentin Slight head infra, resources and power advisory and they are backed up by the wider project finance sector teams.
Sponsor of the Year – NextDecade
With more than US$13bn raised in two back-to-back project financings NextDecade made a major impact on the market in 2025 and demonstrated one of the year’s major themes: a race to fund an unprecedented amount of LNG.
Following the start of the second Trump administration in January, NextDecade was in a newly welcoming environment for LNG development. That environment combined with a favourable court decision in March to set the stage for the company’s financing for train 4 and 5 of the Rio Grande export project in Brownsville, Texas a few months later. The company’s replicable modular building plans combined with strong relationships with lenders, a robust book of offtakers, and a contract with Bechtel as factors that enabled two massive closings within weeks.
On September 9 2025, NextDecade subsidiary Rio Grande LNG train 4, Global Infrastructure Partners, TotalEnergies GIC, and Mubadala reached financial investment decision to construct train 4 with 6m tonnes per year of capacity and first commercial delivery date in 2H 2030. At FID the project was supported by 4.6m tonnes per year of 20-year LNG sale and purchase agreements with ADNOC, TotalEnergies, and Aramco.
The US$6.7bn of total project costs for train 4 was funded with US$3.85bn in asset level debt and US$2.83bn in equity, representing a 60/40 debt-to-equity split. The equity included US$1.13bn from NextDecade and US$1.7bn from its partners. Concurrent with the train 4 facility, NEXT announced a US$734m five-year facility to backstop equity, support letters of credit and other project obligations.
In a little over a month after train 4 closed, NextDecade reached FID on train 5 at Rio Grande LNG, closed financial transactions to fully fund train 5 and its infrastructure, and issued full notice to proceed to Bechtel for train 5 which has expected LNG production capacity of approximately 6m tonnes per year. The moves brought total expected LNG production capacity under construction at Rio Grande LNG to approximately 30m tonnes per year.
Train 5 is commercially supported by 4.5m tonnes per year of 20-year LNG sale and purchase Agreements with JERA, EQT and ConocoPhillips. The guaranteed substantial completion date for train 5, as well as the date of first commercial delivery under the train 5 LNG SPAs is expected in the first half of 2031.
Like train 4, project costs for train 5 and related infrastructure are expected to total approximately US$6.7bn. The financing comprised a US$3.59bn term loan; US$500m private placement notes at Rio Grande LNG train 5; US$1.29bn in equity commitments from NextDecade; and US$1.29bn in equity commitments from partners Global Infrastructure Partners, GIC and Mubadala.
CEO Matt Schatzman has discussed further ambitions at Rio Grande beyond the newly financed expansion. “Our expected 30 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of liquefaction production capacity from Rio Grande LNG trains 1 through 5 will place us at approximately 5% of projected global liquefaction supply in the early 2030s, and we are focused on potentially doubling LNG capacity at the site, starting with the development and permitting of trains 6 through 8.” He noted there is room at the site for 10 trains.
Earlier this year, NextDecade started the pre-filing process with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an expansion of Rio Grande LNG in Texas that includes a sixth liquefaction train and an additional marine berth. The company expects to file a full application for the expansion with FERC in 2026.
Law Firm of the Year – Latham & Watkins
If we had an award for boomerang commodity of the year, we would hands down give it to LNG in 2025. Natural gas and its liquefied, shipping-friendly solution LNG came back with a boom this year just as it was expected to peak and Latham & Watkins really rode the LNG wave with its global advisory mandates.
Latham & Watkins has long been synonymous with LNG work and grasped the LNG comeback with both hands. The firm is now advising on three of the largest projects globally: Papua LNG, Abadi LNG and Canada’s Western LNG, alongside LNG in Mozambique.
After a six-year hiatus from upstream mandates, in 2025 the firm closed in on nearly a dozen upstream deals this year, marking a sharp turnaround. The energy practice is resetting to its core strengths while still tapping into renewables when deals are complex and sizeable, like NeXtWind’s €1.8bn wind repowering financing in Germany.
As the energy practice stays busy with deals for consolidated resources, the infrastructure practice has been branching into new territory, including data centres. Even in Europe, which has become infamous for lagging on data centre investments, Latham advised Apollo-managed infrastructure funds on the acquisition and financing of the European colocation business of Stack Infrastructure from funds managed by Blue Owl Digital Infrastructure Advisors in a carveout transaction.
Latham stood out in 2025 and appears well equipped to navigate the coming years, which point to a surge in petrochemicals, downstream and upstream activity as sponsors will seek to lock in momentum before the next net-zero cycle bites.
The firm has maintained its green financing practice running and it looks poised to remain active in renewables and green M&A but could probably afford being picky about them and eschew some increasingly commoditised green deals.
Ultra-innovative sectors like carbon capture and hydrogen are likely to go backstage for the time being but 2026 might bring a long delayed and complex billiondollar nuclear deal to Poland, which Latham may look at, among other curious and interested firms.
The Americas team works across North, Central, and South American transactions with US-based partners Warren H Lilien, who is based in New York and focuses on complex project financings and infrastructure deals; Jonathan Katz, who operates from Houston and advises on energy and LNG projects; and Daniel Sinaiko, who is based in Century City and concentrates on project development and finance for large-scale energy and infrastructure transactions. These partners lead the firm’s efforts in structuring and executing major projects throughout the Americas.
The APAC practice is spread across Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul and includes partners Stephen P McWilliams, who heads the Asia Project Development & Finance team and advises on major energy and infrastructure projects; Aakash Sardana, who focuses on project finance transactions in South-East Asia; Hiroki Kobayashi, who advises on project development, finance, and M&A matters in Japan; and Richard Chul Kim, who supports project finance work in Tokyo.
Together, they handle a wide range of projects across the Asia-Pacific region, including power, LNG, and renewables.
The EMEA practice includes partners Tom Bartlett, who focuses on project development and finance transactions across Europe; David J Ziyambi, who advises on energy and infrastructure projects with a particular emphasis on Africa; JP Sweny, who concentrates on energy and infrastructure matters within the project finance space; Clement N Fondufe, who co-chairs the Africa practice and works extensively on large-scale developments across the continent; Pedro Rufino Carvalho, who specialises in Latin American projects from his base in London; Harj Rai, who serves as global vice-chair of the practice and co-chairs the Saudi Arabia practice, advising on complex cross-border financings; and Derek McKinley, who is based in Riyadh and focuses on Saudi and regional project development and finance matters.
Deal of the Year – Sizewell C
Sizewell C is a mega financing in every sense of the words. The financing comes a time when global interest in the nuclear power sector is on the rise. Increasing electricity demand fuelled by activities such as growing data centre activity is encouraging the development of new baseload nuclear facilities.
The experience in the UK in nuclear newbuild since the 1990s has not been great. The one scheme, the 3.2GW Hinkley Point C project, was given the go-ahead in 2016 but has been hit by delays and cost overruns. It is now expected to cost more than £40bn and is due online at the start of the next decade.
SZC will be a replica benefitting from the lesson from EDF’s Hinkley scheme. One key difference is SZC has been procured under a regulated based structure whereas Hinkley is backed by a contract for difference strike price.
The SZC is not classic project financing but it has been structured as a private sector deal and it is important for the nuclear sector globally.
La Caisse, formerly CDPQ, Centrica and Amber Infrastructure have taken respective equity stakes in the scheme of 20%, 15% and 7.6%, with developer EDF now having 12.5% and the UK government 44.9%.
Thirteen banks joined the 22-year £5bn BpifranceAE covered loan on the project – ABN AMRO, BBVA, Santander, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, CaixaBank, Citibank, CIC, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Natixis and Societe Generale. The bank financing includes a £500m working capital facility on top.
Further debt, up to £36.5bn, will be supplied by regular issuance during the 10 to 15-year construction period via Gilts on-lent through the UK's National Wealth Fund. The commercial bank debt piece could have been higher but, given the government support package, the deal was deemed to be on the government’s balance sheet so the Gilt option was maximised.
Revenue commencement payments to investors from the regulated asset base structure began as soon as financial close was achieved in November. These payments will be substantial. Centrica said it will receive £800m during construction on its 15% stake. The government's equity share payments will go towards funding construction.
The £38bn final cost estimate at 2024 prices is said to represent a saving of 20% compared with Hinkley. The government said total equity and debt finance made available for Sizewell exceeds the target construction cost and investors will lose potential revenue if there are overruns.
The government is seeking to incentivise investors to keep costs on track via the lower regulatory threshold and higher regulatory threshold mechanism within the RAB. Under the lower threshold the project cost is £40bn with completion due at the end of 2039 and under the higher threshold, £47.7bn with completion in November 2043. This compares with project company's £38bn estimate with completion in mid-late 2030s.
If the project meets the costs up to the lower threshold, 100% of the construction cost and 50% of the cost saving will be added to the regulatory asset base. Between the lower and higher threshold, 50% of those extra costs will be added to the RAB and above the higher threshold, zero. The investors will not be obliged to put in any extra funds above the higher threshold costs.
Clifford Chance was legal adviser, Rothschild was lead financial adviser across equity, debt and credit ratings and BNP Paribas was joint debt financial adviser to Sizewell C. HSBC was French authorities' and green loan coordinator, alongside Santander as documentation coordinator on the Bpifrance AE facility. Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer advised the lenders.
Both Mike Gerrard, chair of Amber’s INPP and Amar Qureshi, CEO of advisory boutique Agilia which worked on the Sizewell C RAB structure, worked with Thames Water to develop the Thames Tideway Tunnel RAB structure, a forerunner to the Sizewell C deal.
Sizewell C managing director Julia Pyke has been working with the project company for eight years and before that as head of power at Herbert Smith Freehills where she worked on the Hinkley Point C deal.
Power Deal of the Year – Wave 5&6
Even in the era of outsized jumbo data centre financings, the Wave 5&6 renewables deal in Saudi Arabia was something of a first. The projects involved financing 12GW of solar and 3GW of wind – presumably the largest renewable project financings undertaken.
The schemes were financed at the same time by the same sponsors and counterparties making them a package although the banks differed slightly between the two. The wind deal had more of an international bank feel.
The projects are sponsored by ACWA Power, Public Investment Fund’s Badeel and Saudi Aramco, 30%. The offtaker is the Saudi Power Procurement Company. The projects are part of the PIF bilaterally negotiated renewables programme with PIF and ACWA.
The programme is designed to speed up project procurement. Tariffs are based on the results from the projects competitively tendered by SPPC. On Wave 5&6, the schemes got to financial close within eight months of the project submission. The process has started again on the latest Wave 7&8 projects.
The projects were financed on the standard soft mini-perm structure with a door-to-door tenor of 27.5 years. The power purchase agreements run for 25 years once construction is complete. The deals attracted 14 international banks, four regional banks and three Saudi banks. Pricing was said to be a little higher on the wind side.
The Wave 6 solar scheme is costing US$6bn and is backed by a US$4.3bn project financing. L&T, Hyundai E&C and China Energy Engineering Construction Group are the EPC contractors in what must be the largest single solar project across the globe. White & Case advised the sponsors and Gibson Dunn Crutcher advised the lenders.
The Afif1, Afif2, Humaij, Bisha and Khulis plants in Wave 6 are located in the Central, Western and Southern regions and have production capacities of 2GW, 2GW, 3GW, 3GW and 2GW respectively.
The funding banks are Ajman Bank, Al Masraf, Alinma Bank, Arab National Bank, China Construction Bank, China Minsheng Bank, Emirates NBD, Eurobank, FAB, HSBC, ICBC, KfW-IPEX Bank, Mizuho, Piraeus Bank, Saudi Awwal Bank, Standard Chartered, SMTB and Saudi National Bank.
The costs for the Wave 5 wind scheme are US$2.3bn and is backed by a US$1.5bn project financing. Covington Burling advised the sponsors and DLA Piper advised the lenders. The two schemes are the 2GW Starah and 1GW Shaqra projects in the kingdom’s central region.
The funding banks are Alinma Bank, Bank of China, China Minsheng Bank, Eurobank, ICBC, KfW-IPEX Bank, Mizuho, Natixis, Piraeus Bank, Standard Chartered, SMTB and Societe Generale.
The two schemes in Wave 5 are the 2GW Starah and 1GW Shaqra in the kingdom’s central region.
The Wave 5&6 projects combined deliver an annual carbon reduction of nearly 27m tonnes of CO₂.
ACWA has had another active year in the developments market. It is raising more than US$15bn in greenfield project debt from a diverse set of lenders including DFIs, ECAs and commercial banks. The projects are spread across renewables, combined cycle gas turbines and water schemes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. In addition, it has refinanced assets, bought assets from Engie and put a rights issue to bed.
Transition Deal of the Year – East Anglia 3
Iberdrola put together its first full opco project financing in the offshore wind sector via the £4.5bn, 1.4GW East Anglia 3 scheme in the UK. At the same time it bought Masdar into the deal as a 50% shareholder.
The two parties first revealed their intensions on the scheme at COP28 in 2023 and kept working on the project as equity appetite for offshore deals lessened. The two will co-govern and co-own the asset with Iberdrola operating the scheme.
The £3.6bn, 23-year project financing was provided by 24 institutions. It includes a £500m tranche guaranteed by the Danish export credit agency EIFO. It has a balloon and cash sweep at the end to improve equity returns for the sponsors. The scheme will use 95 Siemens Gamesa SG14-236 Direct Drive turbines power boosted to 14.7MW.
The banks are Abanca, ANZ, Bank of Ireland, Bank of China, Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, CaixaBank, CIC, FAB, Helaba, HSBC, ICO, ING, Kutxabank, MUFG, NatWest, Rabobank, Santander, Standard Chartered, Siemens Bank and SMBC. Banks in the EIFO tranche include BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, HSBC, ING and Santander.
Credit Agricole and MUFG advised the SPV on the debt. A&O Shearman advised the sponsors and Linklaters advised the lenders.
The scheme has been in construction since 2022. Consent on the project was actually granted back in 201. The project won a contract for difference in summer 2022 at £37.35 per MWh.
With the rise in global construction prices Iberdrola was able stick with the project and win an uplift to £54.23 last September in the most recent CfD tender on 158.9MW. The scheme has a 159MW power purchase agreement with Amazon. Initial operations are due to start in Q4 2026.
Iberdrola’s 3GW East Anglia offshore wind farm hub is split into three with East Anglia 1 is operation. East Anglia 3 is able to use the same onshore underground cabling as East Anglia 1.
Macquarie's Green Investment Group bought 40% of the 714MW East Anglia 1 project in a deal dating back to 2019 and then sold its stake to TRIG, L&G NTR, InfraRed and Octopus. GIG put in place its own £1.1bn financing to back its stake. This deal was Iberdrola’s first stake sale and now it has moved onto a full blown project financing.
Masdar was originally looking at a holdco financing to back its stake in EA3 it was decided to go for the full opco deal. East Anglia 2 is the final scheme in the hub and totals 900MW.
The East Anglia 3 deal is the second major financing between the two parties. Last year, Masdar raised a €488m loan backing its purchase of a 49% stake in the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm from Iberdrola via ABN AMRO, Credit Agricole, ING, financial adviser Santander and Siemens Bank. The loan has a 20.5-year tenor with a small balloon and is a minority interest holdco project financing.
The deal backed Masdar's 49% stake in the project and was arranged on a minority holdco basis. The purchase price was €375m, putting the total value of Baltic Eagle at €1.6bn
