Kirkland & Ellis and Puno and Puno Law Offices have represented Sithe Global Power on the $1.2 billion sale of its interests in two Philippines-based power plants to Aboitiz Power Corp., which was represented by Sidley Austin and Puyat Jacinto & Santos Law Firm (PJSLaw).
The Sidley Austin team was led by partners Nicholas Grambas and David Gartside, while partner Monalisa C. Dimalanta handled the transaction for PJSLaw. The Kirkland team was led by partners Andrew Calder, Rhett Van Syoc and Kfir Abutbul, with support from fellow partners Thomas Evans, Polina Liberman, Sally Southwell, Sarah Jordan, Paul Tanaka and Andres Mena.
Sidley and PJSLaw also advised Aboitiz in completing the bridge financing requirements for a $650 million loan from international lenders for this acquisition. Clifford Chance was legal counsel to the lending consortium, which includes The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, DBS Bank, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd, Maybank Kim Eng Securities, Mizuho Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank.
Sithe Global Power is an affiliated investment fund of private equity firm The Blackstone Group. Under the deal, Therma Power, a wholly owned unit of Aboitiz Power, will hold an indirect effective interest of 66.1 percent in GNPower Mariveles and 40 percent in GNPower Dinginin.
The Aboitiz Group has announced plans to hit a 4,000 MW capacity target in the next five years.