Amid growing appetite internationally for public-private-partnership (P3) financings, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has lured a project finance lawyer from a rival firm to its offices in New York.
Kenneth Schuhmacher, a former general counsel and commercial director at Skanska Infrastructure Development and a former partner at Latham & Watkins, is now an Orrick partner based in Manhattan. Schuhmacher has been applying his talents to infrastructure and energy transactions in various parts of the world for more than two decades, with a particular concentration in P3 deals. His numerous clients have included lenders, borrowers, developers, issuers, export credit agencies, utilities firms, and governments.
In an exclusive interview with IFLR1000, Schuhmacher described his prior experience with Orrick and analyzed a number of trends that are transforming the P3 space.
"I was at Latham for quite a number of years in the Project Finance Group, and then general counsel and commercial director at Shanska Infrastructure Development here in the United States, and in that capacity worked with Orrick on several transactions," he said.
Schuhmacher came to view Orrick as a firm that touched more bases in the infrastructure space than any competitor firms in terms of depth and breadth, and as a firm with an extensive roster of developer-side and lender-side clients. Moreover, he developed strong professional relationships with some Orrick partners.
In Schuhmacher's view, a number of positive trends are at work in the market at present. One example is the continuing P3 activity in jurisdictions such as Florida and Virginia, he commented.
"In particular, I'd note I4 in Florida, led by Skanska and Laing, which should be closing in the next week or so," he said.
Also noteworthy are other states such as Maryland, with Purple Line, and Pennsylvania, with Penn Bridges, which are getting into the P3 game and carrying out projects widely viewed as attractive and doable, Schuhmacher continued.
Yet another development is the possible re-emergence of bank lending in the infrastructure space on a significant scale, which Schuhmacher said may boost the overall capacity for undertaking big infrastructure deals.
"What I can say generally is that I think some of the European banks are again interested in lending into that space, and obviously it's a bank-by-bank decision, post-2008, in terms of how quickly they ramp back into areas of lending that may have been constrained in recent years," Schuhmacher observed.
Schuhmacher made an intriguing prediction. "We'll see European investors such as Skanska, and Laing out of the U.K., who have excellent relations with European banks that have lent into the P3 market in Europe, the U.K., and/or Canada, taking a fresh look at U.S. projects," he said.
Schuhmacher holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan School of Law, an LL.M. from Queens' College of Cambridge University, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.