Norton Rose Fulbright advises Macquarie, Cleco on US$1bn purchase of NRG facility

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright advised Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Macquarie, on Cleco’s US$1 billion purchase of NRG South Central Generating LLC.

Cleco and NRG South Central Generating, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, closed the deal on February 4, a year after the companies signed a purchase and sales agreement, following various state and federal regulatory approvals.

Cleco Cajun LLC (Cleco Cajun), an unregulated subsidiary of Cleco, acquired eight generating assets totaling 3,555 MW, transmission operations and contracts to provide wholesale power to nine Louisiana cooperatives, five municipalities across Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and one investor-owned utility. Seven of the generation assets are managed by Cleco, while the Cottonwood plant in Texas is temporarily leased back to NRG for operation.

The transaction significantly increases the scale of Cleco’s operations in Louisiana by more than doubling its generating capacity and increasing the number of end-user customers by more than 75 percent.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s project finance team was comprised of lawyers from its Washington, DC and New York offices, including Bob Shapiro, Kessar Nashat, Noah Pollak, Marjorie Glover, Dan Wellington, Seth Kruglak, Jared Campbell, Caileen Gamache, Jeffrey Escobar, Susan Cowell and Shana Gilman.