Major Projects Canberra (MPC) is the ACT body charged with planning and delivering major projects within the Territory.

ConnellGriffin was engaged on the Canberra Light Rail project to provide commercial and financial leadership within the project team (Jeremy as Acting Commercial Director) for the procurement of Stage 2A, and also to manage and advise on the refinancing of Stage 1.

CLIENT'S OBJECTIVES:

MPC had the following objectives on this engagement for ConnellGriffin:

to lead the commercial stream and integrate the work of the quantity surveyor, financial adviser and the legal adviser and assist with internal management and addressing of commercial issues
assist with preparing commercial positions and negotiations with the private sector consortium to finalise documentation
to lead the commercial stream for the evaluation of bids and prepared the commercial report for final decisionmaking, and
lead and manage the refinancing of the first stage of the project, acting for MPC and ACT Treasury to conclude documentation and financial close favourable to the ACT.

OUR ROLE:

ConnellGriffin were engaged on the project, to build up the communication, relationships and plan for deliverables. The commercial issues were then identified by the team and were built into the governance structure. They also produced, discussed and negotiated issues papers and provided the client guidance on all documentation.

The ConnellGriffin team lead the commercial stream evaluation, including administration and report writing and produced the summary report to the Board. They liaised with the technical team and gave clear guidance as to the outcome of the bid process.

The team was responsible for managing the project’s relationship with EY and Turner & Townsend and they also worked closely with the legal advisers, Clayton Utz, to control costs, refine scopes of work and manage deliverables to schedule.

The refinancing was successfully led and negotiated by ConnellGriffin and reached financial close at the end of 2020.

KEY ISSUES:

The key issues that the ConnellGriffin team dealt with were:

the commercial stream, and its scope and deliverables, needed to be established and then become functional.
EOI submissions needed a considerable amount of development to be acceptable to Government.
some key commercial issues were unresolved and commercial positions were agreed in principle before final bids were submitted
the refinancing of Stage 1 and the procurement of Stage 2A needed to be coordinated to satisfy equity requirements and debt positions while retaining leverage for Government, and
subconsultant appointments needed to be finalised and required coordinated management.

KEY OUTCOMES:

ConnellGriffin led the successful refinancing of Stage 1, led the commercial stream for Stage 2A, and completed the work leading to the final recommendation for a way forward for the implementation of the Stage 2A of the Canberra Light Rail. The team delivered to the client an organised commercial stream, good working relationships with consultants, better controlled costs, improved communications between the technical and commercial streams, and a successfully completed bid process.

CG Team Members Involved: