Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised the Eurazeo Sustainable Maritime Infrastructure (“ESMI”) fund on a sale and lease back transaction to be entered into with Mainport Shipping Ltd (“Mainport”) for the pre- and post-delivery lease financing of the hybrid survey and ROV support vessel “Geo Master”. The vessel is currently under construction at Neptune Construction B.V., a shipyard in the Netherlands.
Supporting the growing European offshore wind market, the vessel is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2026 and will be put on a long-term time charter to N-Sea Group. Meeting the latest standards in fuel efficiency and emissions and able to run on biofuel, the Geo Master will be a new and important contribution to N-Sea Group’s planned expansion.
The ESMI fund focusses on investing in sustainable maritime infrastructure projects and is advised by Elbe Financial Solutions. With this new investment, it has achieved 75% of deployment and is actively preparing the launch of a second vintage ESMI II fund which aims to achieve its first closing mid-2025.
Founded in 1957, Mainport is an Irish marine services business that charters support vessels to geo-data specialists across the international offshore energy sector. It also provides towage services for ports in the Shannon Estuary.
Headquartered in the Netherlands, N-Sea Group delivers integrated solutions for subsea infrastructure and assets.
The cross-border WFW Assets and Structured Finance team that advised the ESMI fund was led by Paris Partner Alexia Russell, assisted by London Associate Parit Patani.
Alexia commented “We are very pleased to have assisted Eurazeo Sustainable Maritime Infrastructure on another successful leasing transaction. Our client’s instruction is another excellent example of WFW’s commitment to acting on and promoting sustainable finance transactions within the maritime sector”.
RDJ and TRIP Advocaten Notarissen acted as ESMI fund’s Irish and Dutch legal counsel respectively.
Addleshaw Goddard advised Mainport.
