Milbank Tweed tops global poll

Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy has won the global top spot as the leading project finance adviser, according to a survey. The US firm advised on 45 transactions worth u20,439m between January 1997 and August 1998.

Of the City firms, Allen & Overy beat Clifford Chance to third place, advising on u11,875m worth of transactions.

Capital DATA, which compiled the figures for Project Finance, split the deals from Clifford Chance's US offices from the rest of the firm.

The firm's US operations accounted for 13 deals, valued at u5,565m. When combined with the rest of the firm it puts Clifford Chance into second place over White & Case.

Eric Silverman, head of Milbank's global project finance group, said: "Despite the challenges of the financial crisis in the emerging markets, we have closed some of the largest deals to date."

These included acting for the senior lenders in the u2.6bn Sincor heavy oil project in Venezuela - the largest Latin American project financing ever completed - and acting for JEXIM and other Japanese lenders in the u585m financing of the San Roque hydro-power plant in the Philippines.