COURSE NUMBER: MBA217.11
This course is cross-listed
with the EWMBA Program.
COURSE TITLE: Energy and Infrastructure
Project Finance (Part 1)
UNITS OF CREDIT: 1
INSTRUCTOR: Allan Marks
E-MAIL ADDRESS: marks@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION): http://bspace.berkeley.edu
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Sundays, 9:00AM –
5:00PM (February 23 and March 2)
Please note the unusual format
of this course, which meets all day on two Sundays (2/23 & 3/2). You must
attend both sessions in their entirety in order to earn a passing grade.
PREREQUISITE(S): None
CLASS FORMAT: Mixture of lecture, cases
and seminar-style class discussion
REQUIRED READINGS: Benjamin C. Esty, Modern Project Finance: A Casebook (Wiley, 2003)
ISBN-10: 0- 471-43425-6 (paperback)
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Take home final
exam
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND
OBJECTIVES: This course will explore the key commercial, legal, economic and
policy issues affecting the development and financing of infrastructure
projects, with special emphasis on practical concerns related to investments in
alternative energy and other power generation facilities and transportation
facilities. Many of these topics will be raised in the context of comparative,
real-world case studies of different types of energy and infrastructure
projects. Issues specific to cross-border or international transactions will be
discussed as relevant. By the end of the course, within the specific context of
mobilizing capital to meet the growing demand for clean power and critical
infrastructure, students should gain an understanding of the following general
concepts:
• how commercial and financial interests, regulation, private
contracts and market factors dynamically interrelate;
• how to optimize/analyze financing structures, leverage and
investor return;
• how various project risks are identified, allocated,
mitigated and priced, and the roles of contracts, hedges and insurance products
in managing risk;
• how regulatory incentives and public policy choices either
curtail or facilitate particular investment opportunities, often in unintended
ways; and
• how finance plays a role in moving new energy technologies
from lab to market, from small-scale deployments to large-scale, and across
national borders.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Allan Marks is a partner in the Global
Project Finance Department of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley
& McCloy LLP and is based in the Firm’s Los
Angeles office. As part of a broad corporate and finance practice, he has
represented companies involved in power, oil and gas, transportation,
telecommunications, technology, real estate, and other industries. He is
regularly ranked as one of the top project finance attorneys in the United
States. Mr. Marks routinely represents developers, investors, lenders, and
underwriters in the development and financing of complex infrastructure
projects worldwide, with special expertise in the energy, telecommunications
and transportation sectors. He has participated in numerous project financings,
acquisitions, restructurings, securities offerings and private placements for a
variety of sophisticated institutional clients. He speaks and publishes
frequently on cross-border financing issues, infrastructure investments,
renewable energy, deregulation and emerging markets.
Mr. Marks has worked on transactions
throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Allan Marks received his B.A. in
International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. from the
University of California, Berkeley. He has been an adjunct lecturer at
University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. He is the founding co-chair of
the California State Bar Subsection on Public Private Infrastructure and
co-chair of the North American Infrastructure Law Forum and has been a member
of the Energy Steering Committee of the Institute of the Americas and the
U.S./Mexico Aspen Global Forum, among other professional organizations.