Structured Finance

Linklaters delivers a totally integrated structured finance practice across the UK, continental Europe, central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.

The team advises on every type of structured bond transaction, including asset-backed commercial paper, auto-ABS, CDOs/CBOs, RMBS, covered bonds, CMBS, credit card receivables, hybrid project finance, loan portfolio sales and related financings, project bonds, receivables financings, WBS and utility financings. Linklaters has cross-border and multi-jurisdictional experience across all major securitisation classes.

Linklaters’ position as one of the world’s most innovative structured finance practices is beyond dispute. The firm is pre-eminent in the utility sector, advising  Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Welsh Water on their WBS debt platforms. Linklaters is also a market leader in the area of structured acquisition finance (and re-finance) of infrastructure businesses and assets, with recent transactions including Forth Ports and Manchester Airports Group in the UK, Caruna Networks (formerly Fortum Finland) in Finland, NET4GAS in the Czech Republic, Viesgo (formerly E.ON Spain) in Spain and Brussels Airport in Belgium.

Recent highlights in our ABS and RMBS practice include advising the banks on Bilkreditt 3, a Norwegian auto loan securitisation and the first ever PCS (Prime Collateralised Securities) labelled transaction, and other receivables securitisations such as SMART 2015-1 auto ABS (Macquarie); as well as RMBS transactions such as Thrones 2015-1 (Mars Capital); Guildford (Leeds Building Society); Darrowby 4 RMBS (Skipton Building Society); Silverstone RMBS (Nationwide Building Society); Brass 4 (Yorkshire Building Society); RESIMAC UK (RESIMAC) and Rochester 2 (One Savings Bank).

Other areas of particular strength include covered bonds, project bonds, and loan portfolio sales and purchases.

Recent transactions include advising:

  • Thames Water on the £4.7bn Thames Tideway Project, including the associated £8bn public liability management process
  • Cerberus on its acquisition of Northern Rock Asset Management and the £13bn “Granite” portfolio – the largest portfolio sale in UK history
  • DBS Bank on the first ever Singapore Covered Bond Programme. We followed this up by advising UOB on the second Singapore programme
  • the sponsors and issuer on the R1 Slovak Road project bond (awarded “Europe Bond Deal of the Year”, PFI Awards 2013)
  • on over £10 billion of loan portfolio sales and purchases for clients such as Apollo, Cerberus, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Macquarie Bank and TwentyFour Asset Management
  • the arrangers on the establishment of a fleet securitisation platform for Avis Budget EMEA. We subsequently advised on the accession of the operating company of the Maggiore group, a rental car business later acquired by Avis, to the existing platform, including amending the existing documentation and increasing the commitment under the facility agreement by €200m
  • Essar Oil UK on the establishment of a trade receivables asset-backed commercial paper-funded (ABCP) securitisation
  • the joint lead managers on the Silverstone Master Issuer PLC Series 2016-1 issue of Notes (issued pursuant to Reg S and Rule 144a) under the £35,000,000,000 RMBS programme
  • Intu Properties plc on the CMBS/WBS hybrid £5 billion structured debt platform to raise bank and bond financing on Intu’s flagship shopping centre assets
  • on the groundbreaking £20 million bond issue which has won the British Legal Awards “CSR Initiative of the Year”
  • Peel Ports £1.5 billion whole-business securitisation, multisource debt refinancing and swap restructuring
  • the managers on Banco Pastor's €1 billion RMBS issue
  • the Green Deal Financing Company on the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Green Deal Scheme to finance UK householders’ installation of energy efficient measures 
  • the GAVI Fund on the multi award-winning International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) and the World Bank on the Advanced Market Commitments Vaccination Programme
  • on Sealane's multi award-winning $3 billion trade finance securitisation