Gerard Pike
Gerard is a project finance expert with extensive experience in energy and infrastructure.
Gerard works with sponsors, borrowers and bank syndicates to negotiate and document complex energy and infrastructure projects and acquisitions.
Gerard is a renewable energy expert and is a market-leading lawyer in the Australian renewables market. He assists clients in negotiating financing packages, government grants, power purchase agreements and assisting investors on their investments in large-scale wind, solar, battery and hydro projects.
Gerard achieves results for clients though commerciality, market experience, responsiveness and quality legal documentation.
Gerard has more than 20 years’ of legal energy experience and has acted on numerous landmark deals in the infrastructure privatisation, PPP and large-scale renewables sectors.
He is named in Best Lawyers and Chambers Guide and listed in Doyle’s Guide as a ‘pre-eminent’ energy and resources practitioner.
Background
Gerard graduated from Griffith University with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws (Honours). He also has a Graduate Diploma in Banking and Finance Law from the University of Melbourne.
Gerard’s experience outside Herbert Smith Freehills includes secondment to ANZ Investment Bank as in-house legal counsel; solicitor in the Project Finance Group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London; and in-house legal counsel at Goldman Sachs International.
Experience & expertise
Selected matters
- Windlab on a 25-year renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) for its Bungaban Wind Farm with Rio Tinto, Australia’s largest clean energy deal
- Victorian State Electricity Commission (SEC) on the offtake contracts and project financing of its $245 million investment in the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub project and partnership with Equis Australia
- the sponsor(s) or bank syndicates on the majority of Australia’s wind farms to achieve financial close including recently Rye Park, Macintyre, Stockyard Hill, Coopers Gap, Bodangora, White Rock, Cattle Hill, Mt Gellibrand, Willogoloche, Mt Emerald, Mortlake South, Kiata, Coonooer Bridge, Kennedy, Gullen Range, and Moorabool
- the sponsor(s) or bank groups on numerous of Australia’s large-scale solar projects to achieve financial close including Munna Creek, Walla Walla, Carwarp, New England, Bluegrass, Winton, Merredin, Kiamal, Haughton, Ross River, Lilyvale, Gullen Range, Winton, Moree, Williamsdale, Barcaldine, Oakey and Longreach
- acting for projects/sponsors to negotiate PPAs with offtakers including, ACT Government, Aldi Stores, Alinta, ANZ Bank, BP, CleanCo, Coca Cola, CS Energy, Energy Australia, Ergon, Flow Power, Hydro Tasmania, Jacana, Mars Australia, Meridian Energy, Origin, Orora Packaging, Salesforce, Simply Energy, Snowy Hydro, Stanwell, Sunshot, Telstra Energy, Transurban, University of Melbourne, Victorian Government
- the sponsor(s) or bank groups on numerous of Australia’s thermal power stations including Pelican Point, Bayswater, Liddell, Loy Yang B, Millmerran, Yallourn, Neerabup, Callide and Mortlake
- the sponsor(s) or bank syndicates on several Australian gas pipelines including MAPS, SEAGas, Mortlake and Kambalda to Esperance
- Australian counsel to the financiers of the Ichthys LNG Project.
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