Milbank London Closes Zambian and Peruvian Mining Deals
Milbank brings Peruvian Cerro Corona and Zambian Lumwana Mining Deals to Successful Signings, Bringing to an End a Successful 2006
LONDON, 4 December 2006 –The international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP announced today that it closed the $1 billion project financing for Equinox Minerals’ cooper mine in Lumwana, Zambia and the $300 million financing for the Cerro Corona gold and copper mine in Peru sponsored by Gold Fields Limited (of South Africa).
On 1st December, Milbank advised the lenders in signing a $1 billion project financing for Equinox Minerals’ copper mine at Lumwana in Zambia . The lenders provided an amalgam of 12 different credit facilities, pulling together commercial banks, export credit agencies, and development agencies.
Situated 220 km northwest of the renowned Zambian copper belt, Lumwana hosts a measured and indicated mineral resource of 269 million tones of ore grading at 0.8% copper. This represents one of the largest copper projects anywhere in the world currently advancing towards production and among the largest project financed mining deals in Africa to date.
On 14th November, the Milbank team advised the lenders in signing one of the few major Latin American deals this year. The financing was to fund the development of the $300 million Cerro Corona gold and copper mine in Peru sponsored by Gold Fields Limited (of South Africa).
Commenting on both deals and the successful past year, Partner Cathy Marsh stated: “These two projects, coming on the back of our work on behalf of a lender on the Kwale titanium mineral sands project in Kenya earlier this summer, the overall lending group on the Moma mining project in Mozambique, the lenders on the Cerro Verde copper mining deal in Peru (generally viewed as the mining deal of the year for 2005) and the lenders on the Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil, has done much to confirm Milbank’s traditional strength as common lenders counsel in complex mining projects in the emerging markets.”
About Milbank
Milbank’s Project Finance Team has recently won the ‘Chambers 2006 – Global Project & Energy Law Firm of the Year’. Milbank was also recently recognised as the ‘European, Middle East and Africa Project Finance Team of the Year’ by the International Financial Law Review. Milbank has been designated as among the 1st Tier of project finance practices in London and globally by Chambers & Partners Directory.
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 Los Angeles, Washington, DC, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.