Samuel Smith

Primary Focus & Experience

Mr. Smith’s experience includes the representation of project sponsors (investment firms / portfolio companies) and financial institutions (banks, institutional investors, direct lenders) in domestic and cross-border financings and investment transactions in sectors including renewable power (solar, wind and hydro), LNG, digital infrastructure, and mining.

His recent representations include: 

• Lenders in connection with APG’s acquisition from Global Atlantic of a 33% interest in a portfolio of 26 solar photovoltaic projects and 2 battery storage projects located in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Texas comprising approximately 2.2 GWDC in the aggregate.
• Note purchasers in the private placement holdco financing of an indirect owner of the Holtwood project company that owns and operates two hydroelectric plants in eastern Pennsylvania totaling nearly 300MW.
• Lenders in connection with KKR’s acquisition from Sempra Infrastructure of a 60% interest in Sempra PALNG Holdings, LLC, and in turn, a 42% ownership interest in Port Arthur Liquefaction Holdings, LLC, the owner of a two-train liquefied natural gas construction project in Port Arthur, Texas.
• Note purchasers in the private placement holdco financing of an indirect owner of El Paso Electric Company, a Texas corporation.
• Construction loan lenders to multiple portfolios of solar PV projects that operate under Chile’s special regime for distributed generation projects (“PMGD”), entitling the projects to sell their energy output at the regulated stabilized price, and a utility scale solar PV facility in Chile.
• LS Power as purchaser and borrower in connection with the acquisition of a domestic portfolio of 45 hydroelectric generating facilities (totaling approximately 334 MW) from Hull Street Energy.
• SB Energy as sponsor and borrower in connection with the construction loan payoff and back-leverage term financing of a portfolio of utility-scale solar PV projects in Texas and California totaling 1.7 GWp.

Recognition & Accomplishments

Mr. Smith earned his J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law. He received his B.A. in History from Vanderbilt University, where he was a Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholar and graduated summa cum laude.