Clifford Chance has advised Credit Suisse and Standard Chartered Bank as dealer managers for a S$60 million switch tender offer for Pacific International Lines (Private) Limited. Standard Chartered Bank intermediated the settlement of the switch as billing and delivery bank.

The transaction is the first time that switch tender technology has been used in the Singapore dollar bond market and for notes cleared through Singapore's Central Depository (Pte) Limited. This approach is more commonly used by sovereign issuers in the US dollar space.

Slaughter and May advised the Central Bank of Egypt on its $3.1 billion repurchase transaction with a consortium of international banks.

The consortium’s financing was provided against Arab Republic of Egypt dollar-denominated sovereign bonds, which are listed on the Irish Stock Exchange.

Contacts

Ed Fife (partner), George Silber (associate)

Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised Alpha Bank AE (“Alpha Bank”) on raising financing of US$250m from Citibank through the securitisation of part of its shipping portfolio. The upsize securitisation transaction follows Alpha Bank’s first shipping securitisation issuance which raised US$500m in 2014, and represented the first shipping securitisation transaction completed by a Greek bank.

Schulte represented UBS AG, Stamford Branch, as administrative agent, and UBS Securities LLC, as sole lead arranger, for the amendment and restatement of the existing first lien credit agreement of ION Trading Technologies S.à r.l. and ION Trading Finance Limited. After giving effect to the amendment and restatement, the first lien credit facilities consist of a seven-year $255-million U.S. dollar-denominated term loan, a seven-year €1.048-billion euro-denominated term loan and a five-year €15-million revolving credit facility.

Schulte represented UBS AG, Stamford Branch, as administrative agent, and UBS Securities LLC, as sole lead arranger, in the amendment and restatement of the existing first lien credit agreement of Wall Street Systems Delaware, Inc. After giving effect to the amendment and restatement, the first lien credit facilities consist of a seven-year $270-million U.S. dollar-denominated term loan, a seven-year €417-million euro-denominated term loan and a five-year $15-million revolving credit facility.

Precision Drilling Corporation completed a Rule 144A and Regulation S offering of $400 million of 7.125% senior notes due 2026. Precision Drilling is using the proceeds from the offering, together with cash on hand, to repurchase any and all of its 6.625% senior notes due 2020 and a portion of its 6.5% senior notes due 2021 in a tender offer and to redeem any remaining 2020 notes not tendered during the tender offer. Canada-based Precision Drilling specializes in onshore drilling services in all major unconventional oil and natural gas basins.

Simpson Thacher represented J.P. Morgan Securities plc and Nomura Financial Investment (Korea) Co., Ltd., as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners, in connection with the offering of US$500 million Subordinated Capital Securities by Heungkuk Life Insurance Co., Ltd. The offering was conducted in reliance upon Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The securities will pay a fixed rate of interest of 4.475% for the first five years subject to certain exceptions and the interest rate will be reset every five years unless the issuer redeems the securities.

Latham & Watkins represented the underwriters in the US$1.33 billion initial public offering of shares of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Ltd that debuted on the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on 17 November 2017.

HDFC Standard Life’s initial public offering continues another impressive year for Latham’s India Practice, with the team acting on capital markets transactions worth over US$6.5 billion to-date in 2017.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Netwealth Group Limited on its successful A$879 million initial public offering (IPO).

Netwealth Group commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on 20 November 2017, under the ticker ‘NWL’. The listing was the second biggest by market capitalisation so far on ASX in 2017. NWL shares closed 44% up on the first day of trading.

Trowers & Hamlins has advised Affordable Housing Finance plc (AHF)  on their recent £92 million bond issue which was on-lent to five different housing associations.

To date AHF has issued over £1.1 billion of bonds pursuant to this scheme with the funds all being on-lent to registered providers to provide affordable housing, which the firm has advised on.

Partner Naomi Roper commented: