COURSE NUMBER: MBA237.11

 

COURSE TITLE: Financing Energy and Infrastructure Projects

 

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1

 

INSTRUCTOR: Allan Marks

 

E-MAIL ADDRESS: ATMarks@milbank.com 

 

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION): http://bspace.berkeley.edu

 

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Sundays, 9:00AM – 5:00PM

 

Please note the unusual format of this course, which meets all day on two Sundays: March 7 and April 25, 2010.  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.