Europe’s first greenfield financing of EV charging stations 

Overview

Allego is a leader in Europe in the development of networks of charging stations for electric vehicles.

In 2020 we advised Société Générale and Kommunalkredit Austria AG as mandated lead arrangers and initial lenders on an innovative debt financing arrangement of up to €150m made available to the Allego group. This was the first-of-a-kind financing in an infrastructure asset class of the future  and was awarded the most innovative deal of the year in 2020 by IJ Global.

For the last 5 years we have advised Allego and infrastructure investor Meridiam, helping them expand across Europe.  We continue to advise them as they grow in Central and Eastern Europe.  A recent example is advising Meridiam on the structuring and financing of a joint-venture between Allego France and Carrefour on the construction and operation of EV charging stations in Carrefour parking lots in France.

Challenges & Solutions 

The Allego - Carrefour transaction had a number of challenging features, including: 

• complexities in securing bank financing because EV infrastructure is a nascent industry where the lenders bear the traffic/commercial risk and corporate risk on the Energy Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) contractor who are new players; and
• protection for the lenders in terms of termination indemnities was mostly organised and documented through the lease agreement secured with the owner of the parking lots.

With our past experience with the Allego group and growing involvement in the EV mobility sector advising industrial sponsors, financial investors and banks, we were able to work closely with Meridiam on all aspects of the transaction (tax, real estate, project and financing) drafting the tailor-made documentation from scratch to meet the specificities of this new market.

A digital infrastructure pioneer

Overview

Mobile connectivity is a key enabler for a low carbon society and digitisation is a driving force towards EU climate neutrality in 2050.

We advised Vodafone on the establishment and IPO of its European network infrastructure business – Vantage Towers –an industry leader in delivering mobile connectivity in a sustainable way.  Within a year of its establishment, it had met is first major green milestone of ensuring that 100% of the power  it uses is obtained from renewable sources including solar, wind and hydro.

Vantage optimises the construction, space usage, power consumption and maintenance resources required for mobile operators to provide connectivity to their customers.  Creating shared infrastructure and support services across multiple operators, reduces operators’ costs and their environmental impact.

Challenges & Solution 

Vantage is addressing many of the environmental challenges that the telecoms industry faces:

• reducing power consumption – using a variety of techniques, including: consolidating duplicative infrastructure, installing solar panels and turbines on their towers, and using free air-based cooling structures and smart consumption technologies; 
• reducing maintenance effort – co-locating multiple operators’ equipment at shared sites and use of remote site monitoring technologies;
• sustainable construction – experimenting with more sustainable construction materials and techniques and aiming to reuse, recycle or resell 100% of its used network equipment by 2025 and   
• complex regulatory framework – operating in 10 markets with widely divergent rules on the development and operation of telecoms infrastructure, we have helped Vantage develop robust operating procedures that navigate regulatory complexities in areas such planning, energy resale, subleasing, equality of network access and EMF restrictions.  

Data Strategy 

Overview 

Unlocking and analysing the data within organisations is critical to developing and deploying technologies to enable businesses to transition to net zero technology.

We have advised companies on all aspects of their data governance strategies, and on strategic M&A involving key data assets. Recent examples include advising:

• one of the Big 4 accounting firms on navigating data sharing restrictions in  100+ countries  to allow it to increase its adoption of cloud-based services significantly,  and thereby reduce its requirements for on-premise infrastructure and its energy consumption;
• a global data centre operator on the implementation of new building management systems  in its data centres  to manage temperature control, energy demand and maintenance processes more effectively; and
• a major bank on the outsourcing of its facilities management operations, including introducing enhanced environmental management processes, energy reduction targets, and more comprehensive management dashboards to assess performance.

Challenges & Solutions

Linklaters has helped many clients navigate a myriad of risks to leverage data successfully:

• understanding the value of the data, what the legal, commercial, regulatory and ethical challenges are, and how to explain these to business partners, regulators and individuals across different continents; 
• assisting clients with a compliance strategy that navigates an increasingly complex matrix of laws across the globe including data protection and localisation, professional secrecy, cyber security, AI regulations and data-specific rules issued by competition and communications regulators;  and   
• supporting clients with the implementation of sophisticated analysis and AI on data that often involves intense scrutiny from a number of regulators, and claims from individuals.

Trading platform for carbon credits

Overview

In 2021, we advised a consortium of international banks on the establishment of a blockchain-based registry and trading platform for voluntary carbon credits which can originate from a variety of project types including for example, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation projects. 

The project has completed its successful pilot phase of carbon trading, with further phases planned to commence later in 2022.

Challenges & Solutions

This highly complex project required in-depth structuring and analysis to maximise the overall commercial feasibility of the project within the legal and regulatory constraints of numerous jurisdictions. 

We worked closely with the consortium, the blockchain technology provider and a voluntary standard body to support the project through to the successful launch of carbon trades. 

One of the notable challenges was in the legal techniques for “tokenisation” of the carbon credits and driving a consistent regulatory characterisation across jurisdictions. We advised on how the legal structuring of the platform could be developed to address this and achieve the consortium’s commercial objectives.  

As part of the legal structuring of the platform, we ensured the use of distributed ledger technology did not prejudice the ability of the platform to transfer property rights between buyers and sellers and was neutral in the regulatory characterisation of voluntary carbon credits. The project required cross-practice expertise from across the Linklaters global network.