Sam Saunders is a Partner in the Firm’s Banking and Credit Practice. Based in New York, he advises private equity and strategic investors, developers and lenders on the development and financing of energy and infrastructure projects and businesses. His practice spans the lifecycle of energy and infrastructure development and finance—from early-stage joint ventures and governmental arrangements to project development, construction and operations. His work also includes project and portfolio acquisitions, as well as dispositions and contentious, distressed, restructuring and bankruptcy matters.
Sam’s practice includes advising clients on commercial bank facilities, private credit, project bonds, private placements (144A and 4(a)2 notes), ECA, MLA and Department of Energy financings, warehouse, mezzanine and borrowing base facilities, tax credit monetizations, structured and common equity. He has advised on a wide range of U.S. and international projects, including renewable power (solar, onshore and offshore wind), battery storage, EVs, CCUS, hydrogen, data centers, towers, fiber, conventional power, manufacturing, transmission, RNG, LNG, pipelines, petrochemicals, water and mining.
Sam worked in the London office of a major international law firm for over 8 years. Sam earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering with distinction from the University of Virginia. He is admitted to practice in New York.
Notable experience, including prior to joining Simpson Thacher, includes advising clients across the energy and infrastructure sector:
Power:
- Jupiter Power, a BlackRock portfolio company, in a $536 million project financing for three battery storage projects located in Texas
- Takanock and its sponsors, ArcLight and DigitalBridge, in its $500 million turbine financing arrangements for a 507MW power generation project to be co-located with a data center
- Blackstone Infrastructure Partners in its approximately $1 billion investment in a portfolio of wind and solar projects with NextEra Energy Resources
- GIP, a part of BlackRock, in connection with its agreement to acquire a majority and controlling interest in Summit Ridge Energy, one of the United States’ leading commercial solar power companies
- KKR on a development financing facility for Avantus, a U.S. developer of large utility-scale solar and solar-plus-storage projects
- Developer of a CCGT project on an equipment financing from a private credit lender
- BlackRock and Jupiter Power on Jupiter Power's holdco facility
- BlackRock and Akaysha Energy on Akaysha Energy's holdco facility
- Intersect Power on its holdco facility
- Clenera Power on its mezzanine debt financing
- Sponsor and its portfolio battery storage company on a holdco financing from a private credit lender
- Sunpower on its liability management and bankruptcy matters
- Borrower of a construction warehouse for EVs and charging infrastructure from a private credit lender
- Borrower in a construction and tax equity bridge financing of three RNG projects provided by a private credit lender
- TransAlta in its $1 billion acquisition of Mountain Peak Power and Canyon Peak Power, two natural gas-fired peaking facilities in Colorado, from Blackstone
- An infrastructure company on equipment financing for a Texas behind-the-meter power project
Digital:
- Advice to certain neoclouds on GPU/chip financings
- Blackstone in the financing of its joint venture with Related Digital for a $16 billion data center campus in Michigan
- Blackstone in the acquisition of a significant minority stake in Rowan Digital Infrastructure, a leading sustainable hyperscale data center developer
- QualityTech, LP ("QTS") in an inaugural Rule 144A/Regulation S offering of over $4.5 billion aggregate principal amount of Senior Secured Notes due 2036
- QTS in an inaugural construction Rule 144A/Regulation S offering of Senior Secured Notes due 2036
- QTS and Blackstone in construction funding for the development of data center campuses in Ohio, Iowa and Texas, developments valued in aggregate at more than $15 billion and with more than 1 GW of capacity in aggregate
- QTS in an inaugural syndicated term loan facility with an aggregate principal amount of $3.25 billion, backed by a portfolio of completed and fully leased data centers
- Macquarie Asset Management in an unregistered offering of $2.35 billion aggregate principal amount of 9.250% Senior Secured Notes due 2030 by its AI infrastructure partnership with Applied Digital Corporation through a subsidiary, which will fund construction for two of the partnership's new high-performance computing data centers in North Dakota
- CBRE Investment Management and its portfolio company, CitySwitch, in a first-of-its-kind investment-grade 4(a)2 private placement for a portfolio of towers
- Tiger Infrastructure and its portfolio company, Strategic Venue Partners, in a first-of-its-kind 4(a)2 private placement to raise $120 million of debt from a syndicate of institutional investors for a portfolio of in-building wireless infrastructure assets
- Harmoni Towers in its inaugural $620 million private placement financing, the largest project finance cell tower bond issuance in the United States to date
- Flexential with an $800 million revolving credit facility to support the development of collocated data centers
Oil & Gas:
- The sponsors of Rovuma LNG (Mozambique) on its proposed $15+ billion project financing
- GIP, a part of BlackRock, in the financing related to the $5 billion Delfin LNG Project, the first floating LNG project in the United States, including a $2.3 billion commercial term facility, a $510 million notes offering and an $800 million back-leverage financing
- Chevron New Energies in its acquisition of a controlling interest in the ACES Delta, LLC joint venture, which is developing a green hydrogen project in Utah financed by a Department of Energy loan guarantee
- The borrower in an approximately $1 billion project financing for a gas gathering and CCS project
Other:
- A private credit lender to a water infrastructure company with an international portfolio of water projects
- Golden Triangle Polymers Company in the project financing of an $8.5 billion integrated polymers facility in Texas
- Advice to various mining project companies and their sponsors on debt and equity financing, offtake and host government arrangements and dispute resolution