LatinFinance - September/October 2015 - 109

of mandates and also in the individual
attention that's paid to each transaction.
Notable deals include the $500 million
syndicated loan backing the Opain
Airport in El Dorado, Colombia, the
$476.6 million loan for the Kelar power
project in Chile, the $890.6 million loan
package for Los Ramones Sur II gas
pipeline in Mexico and an $800 million
bond refinancing the Angamos coal-fired
plant in Peru.
The $280 million loan backing
Terminal Internacional del Sur's Matarani
port project in Peru highlights the bank's
in-depth approach to its transactions and
clients. For this project, which provides
the main marine export valve for the
world's largest copper producing mine
Las Bambas, the bank spent significant
time re-working documentation and
contracts with the government and later
with the mine's new Australian owner
Glencore, which acquired the mine
through its merger with Xstrata before
later divesting the asset.
"The client really appreciated our
assistance from the beginning. I think
they found a lot of value in it and that also
helped us to get additional roles during
the life of the transaction," Perdigon says
of the Matarani project. LF

BEST SPONSOR

GRUPO COBRA
A broad range of infrastructure projects
and a unique approach to financing
characterize Grupo Cobra and its
affiliates in Latin America's infrastructure
development.
"We're a very large corporation covering
a huge area, so one of our strengths is
diversification," says David Vuelta Mitchell,
director of structured finance of Grupo
Cobra parent ACS Group. "Latin America is
extremely strategic for Cobra," he says.
Though it is not as active in project finance
as some of its peers, such as Odebrecht or
Pemex, borrowers and lenders tend to take
notice of its innovative transactions when
they do arrive in the market.
For its $254 million financing backing
Grupo Cobra's Marcona/Tres Hermanas
wind farm in Peru, the company pooled
debt from several multilaterals, a
commercial bank and an export credit
agency to execute the transaction that
closed in April. The deal included senior
and junior debt, as well as a $20 million
fixed rate tranche fashioned for an
undisclosed institutional investor. Despite
garnering more interest from commercial

Established: 1944
2014 ebitda: €710m
Remarkable deals: Marcona/Tres
Hermanas, Eten power plant

lenders as the year-long deal progressed, the
sponsor chose to stick with the multilateralheavy group.
"We like relationship banks. Cobra's
approach is always commercial in the sense
that we like a long-term relationship with
our banks and we need a bank that can
understand that," Vuelta says.
Latin American development bank CAF
was a co-lead arranger on the Marcona/Tres
Hermanas deal, and was also instrumental
in a landmark transaction backing Cobra's
223MW cold reserve Eten power plant,
which went online in Peru late last year.
The Eten deal included a $132.8 million
issuance of senior secured variable funding
notes in 2013, marking Latin America's
first cross-border greenfield project bond.
CAF provided a partial credit guarantee on
the notes, which allowed investors to get
comfortable with the unusual step of taking
on construction risk. LF

#1 in Energy and Infrastructure
It's What We Do!

México
Ciudad de México

Monterrey, NL

Villahermosa, Tab.

San Luis Potosí, SLP

www.rdabogados.com.mx

September/October 2015 - L ATINFINA NCE.COM 109
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LatinFinance - September/October 2015
