30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
United States of America

+1 (212) 408-5160
rsonkin@chadbourne.com

Download a V-Card

Richard Sonkin

Partner

Practice Description

Richard Sonkin’s practice focuses on the areas of project finance and real estate. He has extensive experience in handling complex commercial and financial transactions for lenders and developers, including transactions involving project financing of independent power projects, both domestically and internationally.

Representative Matters

  • Represented The AES Corporation in its $1.02 billion acquisition, project financing and Rule 144A leveraged lease financing of six coal-fired merchant power plants, with a generating capacity of 1,424MW from New York State Electric & Gas. This transaction was the first time a simultaneous closing of an acquisition of power plants for the merchant market and a leveraged lease financing with a Rule 144A debt offering were achieved.
  • Represented Credit Suisse with respect to its underwriting of a construction and term loan for a facility in Wellsville, Ohio.
  • Represented The AES Corporation in its $731 million acquisition of three natural gas-fired merchant plants in California.
  • Represented ABN-AMRO in connection with the Electroandina project, a $465 million financing of power plants and interconnection transmission lines in northern Chile, and in the $38 million debt financing of the expansion of this project.
  • Represented The AES Corporation in connection with its acquisition from KMR Power, in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $60.8 million, of controlling interests in two gas-fired plants in Cartagena, Colombia.

Honors

Mr. Sonkin was listed in Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s Leading Project Finance Lawyers (2008). He was cited Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business (2008) for his work in project finance.  He was also the recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Civil Procedure and Real Property (1974).

Activities and Affiliations

Mr. Sonkin was a former bi-monthly columnist for the New York Law Journal.
 

Practice Areas

Real Estate

Project Finance

Finance

Private Funds

Industries

Energy

Renewable Energy

Regions

North America

United States

Education

  • Boston University, B.A., magna cum laude, 1971
  • Syracuse University College of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, Member of the Justinian Honor Society and Order of the Coif, 1974

Admissions

1975

New York

1975

U.S.D.C. - S.D.N.Y.

Languages

English