Slaughter and May advised the National Wealth Fund on a £300m credit enhancement guarantee facility to support the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme

Slaughter and May advised the National Wealth Fund (“NWF”) on a £300m Credit Enhancement Guarantee Facility to support the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme (HARP). The facility has been made available as part of a broader financing package to Cascade Infrastructure Ltd – the Equitix, GLIL and STRABAG Consortium - which will design, build, finance and maintain the replacement of six tunnel sections of the Haweswater Aqueduct.

NWF’s credit enhancement guarantee helped to mobilise private capital to the project, which will ensure a resilient supply of water from the Lake District to millions of residents in Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. The investment aligns with NWF’s mandate to deploy capital into projects which support the government’s growth mission, with water being one of the designated infrastructure strategy sector areas within remit. HARP is critical to improve water infrastructure, and is also the first project to be delivered under the Direct Procurement for Customers (DPC) model, introduced to enable large water infrastructure projects to be delivered more competitively.

Slaughter and May worked with NWF’s internal legal and business teams to develop this innovative product and implement the transaction.