Chris is a Partner in the Energy sector.

A commodities, international trade and financing expert, Chris has almost 25 years of legal, commercial and front-office experience across the commodities, natural resources, banking and structured finance sectors.

Chris has deep operational and commercial experience in his sectors and has significant experience advising on, structuring and executing a range of both physical and financial cross-border commodities and structured finance transactions involving financial institutions, mining companies, corporates, merchant traders, insurance companies, refiners, smelters and storage companies.

Over the course of his career, Chris has worked on structured lending, prepayment and pre-export finance transactions, sale and purchase transactions, inventory and working capital transactions, offtake transactions, non-payment and physical loss insurance policies, derivatives and investor products.

Thanks to a career that includes senior leadership roles at Deutsche Bank, ICBC Standard Bank and Hartree Partners, Chris is uniquely placed in the legal market as a legal expert who has worked directly with metals, energy, carbon, finance and credit trading teams at banks and trading houses with a core focus on commodities and structured finance.

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  • US$100m bridge financing for an internationally-renowned mining fund provided as part of the acquisition proceeds for an operating gold mine in West Africa.
  • US$37.5m equity, prepayment, offtake and environmental bond financing package for Peruvian mining company.
  • US$40m cobalt prepayment and physical repurchase agreement with Chinese battery manufacturer.
  • US$350m secured, syndicated loan transaction and hedging programme provided for the acquisition of an aluminium smelter.
  • US$100m limited recourse loan to major commodity trader secured on rights under physical commodity offtake agreement with state-owned commodity producer.
  • US$35m secured prepayment and gold offtake transaction with a Hong Kong based gold producer.
  • Iron ore prepayment and off-take transactions with a combined notional in excess of US$175m.
  • Secured financing transactions with junior mining companies located in the USA, Canada, Panama and Mexico for a combined notional in excess of US$250m.
  • Platinum group metal allocated leasing transactions with fibreglass manufacturers and oil refiners.
  • Inventory monetisation transactions on base metals, battery metals and energy products both in storage and in-transit across a range of jurisdictions.
  • US$10m, five-year prepayment and voluntary carbon credit purchase transaction for an Avoided Planned Deforestation (APD) Project in Brazil.

Education

  1. 1997-1999 · Nottingham Law School – LPC and PGDL
  2. 1994-1997 · University of Birmingham – BA Hons Medieval and Modern History