Katy McNeil
Headshot of Katy McNeil

Katy C. McNeil

Partner

Katy McNeil is a partner in the U.S. Energy, Natural Resources & Infrastructure practice who represents clients across the renewable energy sector, including financial institutions, institutional investors and developers in a wide range of transactions: project financing, acquisitions and divestitures of infrastructure and energy assets, tax credit monetization, workout arrangements, and other types of complex secured and unsecured financings.
Katy handles deals from soup to nuts, crafting novel structural approaches to all manner of energy technologies, particularly solar, wind, storage, and biofuels. Katy’s clients consistently praise her unique blend of substantive knowledge, aptitude in controlling turbulent deals, and ability to address problems in a creative and efficient manner in order to ensure that the most complex and multi-tiered transactions are closed on time and within budget.

Expertise

Industries

Experience

Representative matters

Relevant experience prior to joining A&O Shearman includes advising:
  • ATLAS SP Partners:
    as arranger for USD225 million construction and term facility to support Radial Power’s pipeline and operating platform of distributed generation projects, encompassing both asset- and portfolio-level, turnkey integrated commercial & industrial (C&I) and community solar projects. The transaction represents Radial Power’s inaugural portfolio-level debt financing.
    as arranger for a USD300m warehouse facility to Distributed Solar Development (DSD) to finance a portfolio of commercial, industrial and distributed generation projects across the United States and as underwriter for the USD155m solar asset-backed securitization to DSD, which was the first C&I ABS successfully taken to market.
  • Denham Capital, First Citizens Bank & Trust Company, Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (Nord/LB), and National Bank of Canada as lenders in the approximately USD340m construction and bridge, term, and letter of credit facilities for Escape Solar, a solar project developed by Estuary Power, in Nevada.
  • A financial investor:
    in connection with its investment (along with co-investors Invenergy and Blackstone Infrastructure) in the acquisition of American Electric Power’s renewables portfolio of a 1,365MW renewables portfolio comprised of 14 projects representing 1,200MW of wind and 165MW of solar in 11 states for USD1.5bn. The transaction included financing in the form of a first-of-its-kind PTC tax credit transfer with Bank of America Securities and committed acquisition financing from a consortium of banks led by Banco Santander S.A., New York Branch.
    as cash equity investor, in an upco parent of the Class B investor in Calhoun Solar, a 200MW solar project in Calhoun County, Michigan developed by Invenergy.
    in its USD1bn investment commitment in Invenergy Renewables, North America's largest privately held renewable energy company. This investment took the form of three strategic equity investments to acquire 65% of three global renewable energy businesses and the simultaneous offering of a USD500m mezzanine debt facility.
  • Banco Santander, S.A., New York Branch, in its provision of construction loan, tax equity bridge loan, back-leverage loan and letter of credit facilities to a global private equity firm for the construction and operation of an approximately 66MW solar photovoltaic energy generation plus approximately 198MWh BESS storage project in South Carolina.
  • ClearGen LLC in its investment to acquire the membership interests owned by MUFG in 25 operating wind projects (totaling 1.4GW of generation capacity), including as lead transaction counsel for ClearGen in the upper-tier tax equity financing with Goldman Sachs as the tax equity investor and the debt financing utilized to acquire the interests provided by Bank of America, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale as lenders.
  • Santander, Bank of America, and SMBC as lenders in the approximately USD348m construction and bridge, term, and letter of credit facilities for Great Pathfinder, a wind project developed by Apex Clean Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Ares Management, in Iowa.
  • Nord/LB and Rabobank as lenders in the approximately USD108m construction and bridge, term, and letter of credit facilities for Concho Valley Solar, a solar photovoltaic generation facility developed by Korea Midland Power Co. in Texas.
  • Santander Bank, N.A. and Societe Generale in a USD102m construction loan facility to finance the construction of an approximately 100MW (AC) solar project in Clark County, Nevada developed by Invenergy.
  • Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors on a construction loan facility of ~USD105m for the construction of a 98MW(DC) solar project, developed by Pine Gate Renewables, in Centerfield County, South Carolina.
  • The lender in an USD860m development loan for five separate utility scale solar projects, each between 180MW(AC) and 300MW(AC), in Texas and California.
  • Longroad Energy in acquiring tax equity financing for the 242.8MW El Campo Wind Farm in Knox County, Texas.
  • Santander Bank and CIT Bank in the financing of the CleanCapital acquisition of the Tahoe portfolio, a 46.9MW portfolio of 60 commercial and industrial solar photovoltaic energy projects.
  • Santander Bank as part of a USD52.8m debt and tax equity financing enabling Greenwood Energy to construct a six-project, 26MW solar portfolio across Florida, Vermont and New York.

Published Work

  • "How COVID Has Changed Project Development And Finance," Law360, September 21, 2022

Awards

  • Ranked by Law360: “Rising Star”, 2023

Qualifications

Admissions

Illinois, 2015

New York, 2022

Academic

University of Michigan Law School, JD, cum laude, 2014

The University of Chicago, BA, honors, 2010

Disclaimer
A&O Shearman was formed on May 1, 2024 by the combination of Shearman & Sterling LLP and Allen & Overy LLP and their respective affiliates (the legacy firms). Any matters referred to above may include matters undertaken by one or more of the legacy firms rather than A&O Shearman.