Herbert Smith has closed loans worth £550m for key finance client London & Continental Railways (LCR) as the company enters the final stages of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) project.

The financing – a £400m loan from the European Investment Bank and a £150m loan from Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau – will be used to complete section two of the public-private partnership CTRL project from Southfleet via a new international terminal at London St Pancras.