The international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, led by Jonathan Green, co-chair of the Firm’s Global Project Finance Group, represented institutional and bank lenders in the debt and equity financing of more than $850 million for construction of the 660-MW Hudson Transmission Project, an underwater transmission cable connecting New Jersey and Manhattan. The Hudson Project was developed by Hudson Transmission Partners LLC. Equity financing for the Hudson Project was provided by private equity funds managed by Energy Investors Funds and Starwood Energy Group Global, LLC. SG Americas Securities, LLC and RBS Securities, Inc. acted as placement agents for the financing.

“The Hudson Project is very important for New York City and New York State. It demonstrates how attractive well-structured projects in the electricity sector are to long-term institutional investors,” said Mr. Green. “Milbank’s strong capabilities and deep experience in power and energy, as well as familiarity with the private placement market, makes us uniquely capable to advise on transactions such as the Hudson Project.” 

Scheduled for completion in the summer of 2013, the Hudson Project, will be a source of electric power for the New York Power Authority serving governmental customers in New York City using High Voltage Direct Current technology. The cable will enter the Hudson River at Edgewater, N.J. and will then be buried beneath the river bottom for approximately three miles before making landfall near Pier 92 in Manhattan, interconnecting to the ConEd West 49th Street substation. The Hudson Project has been developed by substantially the same team that successfully developed the Neptune Regional Transmission project from New Jersey to Long Island, for which Milbank also represented the lenders.

Additional Milbank attorneys involved in this transaction include of counsel Bruce Gardner and associates Dan Michalchuk, Sara Thompson, Erika Kuver-DelDuca, Anne Shutkin and Alyssa Frederick.