Milbank Partner Allan Marks to Address P3 Americas Conference on Infrastructure Investment Opportunities for Equity Funds
Annual Meeting of Infrastructure Research Group to Examine Strategies for Developing Successful P3 Transactions in a Challenging Political Environment
LOS ANGELES, June 18, 2007 – Allan T. Marks, partner in the global project finance department of the international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, will speak at the P3 Americas “US P3 INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE FORUM 2007” to be held June 21 – 22, 2007 in New York City. Mr. Marks will be chairing a panel focusing on strategies for equity funds seeking to invest in infrastructure assets. The panelists will include senior executives from Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, Babcock & Brown, Macquarie and Morgan Stanley.
P3 Americas annual conference will focus on critical issues impacting infrastructure development, including political, environmental and financing challenges. Case studies, such as toll roads in Texas and Florida, will be used to examine these issues. “P3” or “PPP” are acronyms for public-private partnerships, a mechanism in which an infrastructure asset (e.g. toll road, airport) or government service is funded and operated through a collaboration between government and one or more private sector companies. Widely used in Europe, this innovative financing structure allows public agencies to build critical infrastructure projects sooner while shifting risks onto the private sector.
Based in Milbank’s Los Angeles office, Mr. Marks represents developers, investors, lenders and underwriters in the development of complex infrastructure projects worldwide, with special expertise in the transportation, energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Marks has been particularly active in toll road financings, and has worked on a number of noteworthy deals, including the first PPP done in the United States – the $773 million public-private co-financing of the SR 125 South toll road project in California (2003); the dual currency, dual tranche senior secured bond financing of the Autopista Central toll road in Santiago, Chile (2003); the US$200 million bond financing of the Monterrey-Cadereyta toll road in Mexico (2004); and the refinancing of the Chicago Skyway (2005). Most recently Mr. Marks completed the $603 million acquisition financing of the Pocahontas Parkway toll road in Virginia, which was named “Project Finance Deal of the Year (Americas)” by International Financial Law Review. He is currently working on several toll road projects in Texas, Florida, Canada and Latin America.
The P3 Americas two-day conference will feature presentations by leading infrastructure executives from development companies and government agencies to investors and financiers. Individual and panel discussions will cover a range of complex issues, such as “Overcoming political hurdles to match private capital with the US’s transportation funding deficit”; “The evolution of the US P3 greenfield and asset acquisition infrastructure market”; “How will equity funds actually be invested in infrastructure assets?”; “How will mega US infrastructure transactions be funded as the debt market becomes increasingly mature?”; and “The role of private activity bonds in P3 projects”.
P3 Americas and its sister site Infra-News are owned by Inframation Ltd., a privately owned financial media group based both in London and New York. P3Americas provides specialist news and research for the Americas P3/PPP infrastructure finance markets, covering the US, Canada and Latin America. (www.p3-americas.com)
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a preeminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions in many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. Our transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance and transactions, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. Our clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The Firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.