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Deal Maker of the Year Awards 2012 WINNER - UK
DEAL: Watson, Farley & Williams advises Citibank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch on US$140m benchmark financing for two SCF Sovcomflot VLCC newbuildings
NAME: Nigel Thomas COMPANY: Watson Farley & Williams POSITION: Partner ADDRESS: 15 Appold Street, London, EC2A 2HB TEL: +44 207 814 8000 EMAIL: nthomas@wfw.com
FIRM PROFILE: DEAL OVERVIEW:
Watson, Farley & Williams is a leading international law firm with offices in London, New York, Paris, Hamburg, Munich, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Athens, Piraeus, Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. The firm currently has over 320 lawyers and 630 staff.
The firm provides services of high quality and value to clients throughout a range of industry sectors, with particular focus on: Finance & Investment, Maritime, Energy, Natural Resources, Transport, Real Estate and ICT. Lawyers from our international offices work as integrated teams to provide practical, commercially focused legal services. Our locations allow us sufficient geographical spread to be competitive in the global market and to provide consistently high quality legal services to our clients.
Watson, Farley & Williams (WFW) advised Citibank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch on signing a loan agreement with Sovcomflot to finance the construction of two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs).
Sovcomflot is one of the world’s leading energy shipping companies, with a fleet of 157 vessels with a total deadweight of 12 million tonnes. It is now entering a new market segment with its order of VLCCs – the largest class of tanker. The vessels are under construction in China and will operate on longterm charters with PetroChina International (a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation CNPC), one of the world’s major oil and gas companies. The agreement provides US$140m of financing from Citibank
and Bank of America for a period of seven years.
The WFW team was led by Nigel Thomas, partner and head of WFW’s Shipping sector, and David Osborne, partner and head of Asset Finance, with Catriona Henderson, associate.
Vikram Pandit signed the deal as CEO of Citigroup, commenting: “Today, Sovcomflot is one of the world’s leading shipping companies, and we are pleased to be a partner in this benchmark deal.”
Commenting on the deal, Nigel Thomas said: “We were delighted to assist two such prominent global financial institutions on a high-profile and strategic financing for Sovcomflot.”
We were delighted to assist two such prominent global financial institutions on a high-profile and strategic financing for Sovcomflot.