In the midst of a surging renewable energy sector in Canada, Blakes is the latest firm to ramp up its project finance practice with a lateral hire from a competitor.
Catherine Doyle, who was previously a partner at McMillan, is now a partner in the Toronto office of Blakes. Doyle represents financial institutions in infrastructure financings and has particular expertise in credit facilities, structured financing, asset-based lending, and lease financings. Projects in which Doyle has been instrumental include the Bow Lake Wind Farm, the Fort St. James Green Energy Project, the Northeast Anthony Henday Drive Project, and the Saskatoon Civic Operations Centre Project.
“Every minute you pick up the paper, there’s a new infrastructure project in Canada being announced. They’re getting bigger and bigger, and this firm gets calls on all of them,” Doyle told IFLR1000.
Doyle observed that the large projects grabbing the headlines in Canada at the moment are transportation projects.
“Look at the new bridge over the St. Lawrence River that is currently in the bid phase, or the light rapid transit project in the market in Alberta right now. The George Massey Tunnel in British Columbia will be a very large project as well. You’re seeing a lot of spend in this area. There’s also a very large electricity transmission project underway now in Alberta. All in all, transportation is the leader, but there are interesting things happening in the energy and power sectors too,” she said.
“A lot of large projects are moving ahead. On the energy side of infrastructure, I think that the falling price of oil may have an impact since it’s where the majority of effort and spending goes,” Doyle added.
Doyle observed that though lenders and equity borrowers are involved with different aspects of a deal, they tend to worry about the same risks. They attempt to balance an appropriate risk transfer, certainly in public infrastructure projects, between the private sector and the public sector, and that risk transfer makes sense for both lenders and equity investors, she noted.
“These projects in the public infrastructure space don’t have the sort of upside that you would have, for example, when lending to or investing in a tech startup. Public infrastructure projects are much more constant in terms of return, because public sector authorities are only willing to pay so much. So, they’re very complex financings, whether you’re on for the equity investors or the lenders. An important model of the P3 partnership is to transfer some of the risk, and there’s value for money in that approach,” Doyle continued.
Doyle holds an LL.M. from York University – Osgood Hall Law School, an LL.B. from The University of British Columbia, an M.A. from the University of Toronto, and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University.