Financial advisory is always a hotly-contested section in the IJGlobal Awards, and the judges were faced with the annual challenge of selecting winners for each region based on submissions from banking teams, advisory houses and specialist boutiques.

Against so much competition, it is all the more impressive that the culmination of judging from teams in London, New York, Singapore and Dubai identified SMBC as the winner of the IJGlobal Financial Adviser of the Year for deals closed in calendar year 2019.

Judging scores from each region are totted up and the highest placed firm that has been active across most regions is singled out for honours.

Judges saluted SMBC’s “impressive international presence” and the “leading role it plays in the international market” with one saying it “seems to target challenging deals where it can demonstrate its excellence”.

One transaction that elicited great comment from the APAC judges was the 640MW Yunlin Offshore Wind Project in Taiwan – the largest offshore wind transaction financed in Asia Pacific and the first large, multi-MW offshore wind project in the country. Having reached financial close within 13 months, this transaction received an extra salute.

Meanwhile, in New York the judges singled out the Autopista al-Mar project in Colombia where SMBC acted as financial adviser on the country’s largest non-recourse financing. It also stands out as the first project financing in Colombia involving development banks, local and international; international commercial banks; and debt funds in multiple currency funding (Colombia Peso, US Dollars, UVRs and Euros).

Sticking with the NY judging panel and again focused on Latin America, Peru’s Lima Airport was another key project that singled SMBC out for accolade. It was one of the largest financings in the region that involved development banks as well as local and international commercial lenders, providing an innovative structure in the project finance spectrum.

SMBC also played a significant role the Middle East with key roles on 2 key Saudi Arabian transactions – Dumat Al Jandal onshore wind IPP and Shuqaiq 3 independent water and power plant.

Dumat Al Jandal was the first large-scale onshore wind IPP in the kingdom and indeed the GCC. It is a key component in Round 1 of the Saudi National Renewable Energy Programme under the supervision of the Ministry of Energy and the Renewable Energy Project Development Office.

Like all such projects at financial close, Dumat Al Jandal led the region for lowest levelized cost of electricity. It was structured as a standalone IPP on a build-own-operate basis with the sponsor – EDF Energies Nouvelles and Masdar – signed up to a 20-year PPA.

Shuqaiq 3 was procured by Saudi Water & Electricity Company (now Saudi Water Partnership Company, SWPC) – SMBC’s client – to deliver a 450,000 m3/day seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant primarily to serve the city on the Red Sea coast.

The project achieved financial close barely a year from the issue of RFP in March 2018 and set a benchmark for SWPC and its advisers in demonstrating their combined ability to deliver on the schedules planned.

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