International law firm Clifford Chance has advised an international banking consortium led by Commerzbank AG, ING Bank, a branch of ING-DiBa AG, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and UniCredit Bank AG (the latter also as documentation agent) in an IPO syndicated loan financing for publishing group Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA (formerly Springer Nature GmbH).

The credit facilities made available have a volume of approximately EUR 1.6 billion and approximately USD 848 million respectively.

Springer Nature is home to some of the world’s most influential research journals. The largest English language academic book publisher and a global leader in open access publishing generated revenues of EUR 1.64 billion in 2017. Shareholders of Springer Nature are Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and private equity investor BC Partners.

The international Clifford Chance team advising the consortium banks was led by finance specialists partner Bettina Steinhauer, senior associate Christoph Nensa and transaction lawyer Stefanie Vogt (all Frankfurt).

Advice on English law aspects was provided by partner Barbara Mayer-Trautmann (Munich), senior associate Sylwia Gutman (Frankfurt) and associate Ololade Oni (Munich) as well as partner Daniel Winick, associate John McManmon (both New York), partner Titus de Vries and associate Amin Tamaddoni (both Amsterdam) - all Finance.

In Switzerland, the Clifford Chance team was supported by best friends law firm NKF Niederer, Kraft & Frey with partner Till Spillmann and senior associate Adrian Koller.