Slaughter and May advised Legal & General Group Plc on its issuance of £600 million Fixed Rate Reset Subordinated Notes due 2045 pursuant to its £3 billion Euro Note Programme. The Notes bear interest at the rate of 5.375 per cent. per annum until 27 October 2025. On such date and thereafter on each reset date, the interest rate shall be reset by reference to a reference bond rate.

Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Securities and Merrill Lynch International acted as joint lead managers.

CONTACTS

A Travers Smith team led by private equity partners Ian Shawyer and James Renahan have advised management on the buyout of the Lowell Group ("Lowell") by a newco backed by Permira funds ("Permira") from TDR Capital ("TDR") and its subsequent merger with GFKL, an existing portfolio company of Permira.  As part of the transaction, management (along with Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan ("OTTP"), an existing investor in Lowell) will continue as shareholders in the combined business. 

Shoosmiths has advised The Royal Bank of Scotland plc on the £4.5million refinancing of student accommodation provider Ziggurat Student Living.

Slaughter and May advised Santander UK Group Holdings plc on the establishment of its EUR 30 billion Euro Medium Term Note Programme. The programme allows Santander UK Group Holdings plc to issue notes specifying their status as senior or subordinated.

Linklaters acted for Unifergie (a member of the Crédit Agricole group) as mandated lead arranger and lender for itself and on behalf LCL and Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence as well as BPIfrance Financement and La Banque Postale Crédit Entreprises as lenders in relation to the € 150,000,000 refinancing by Tenergie SAS of a portfolio of 42 solar plants with an aggregate capacity of 54.4MWp.

Asset manager Rivage Investment, who participated in the structuration of the transaction alongside Unifergie, also participates in this refinancing through two of its funds.

Gide advised the underwriting syndicates in the context of two U.S. dollar bond offerings by EDF in the form of private placements. The first offering was a $3.5 billion senior bond issue in four tranches, including:

    * $1.5 billion, with a 5-year maturity and a fixed coupon of 2.350%
    * $500 million, with a 20-year maturity and a fixed coupon of 4.750%
    * $1.15 billion, with a 30-year maturity and a fixed coupon of  4.950%

Bayport Management Ltd has issued Swedish bonds with a value of SEK 1.1 billion. The issue was a private placement directed to Swedish and foreign institutional investors. The bonds have been issued within a framework amount of SEK 1.5 billion. The bond loan is Bayport’s fifth Swedish bond and will, as the previous bond loans, be listed on the corporate bond list at Nasdaq Stockholm.

Slaughter and May, London and Hong Kong, advised Standard Chartered on the annual update of its US$77.5 billion debt issuance programme, under which Standard Chartered PLC, Standard Chartered Bank and Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited have the ability to issue notes to be listed and traded on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges.

CONTACTS

London

Capital Markets: Nilufer von Bismarck (partner), Akshay Kundaiker (associate), Anthony Phillips (associate); Tax: Jeanette Zaman (partner), Rose Leyland (associate)

Hong Kong

Credit Suisse Group AG (SIX: CSGN) announced that it plans to issue new shares in a total amount of CHF 6 bn (€ 5.55 bn). A first tranche of this capital increase shall result in the issuance of registered shares to certain qualified investors. The second tranche shall be executed by way of a rights offering to existing shareholders, underwritten by a banking syndicate. Both tranches are subject to shareholder approval in an extraordinary general meeting planned for November 19, 2015.

Hogan Lovells has achieved a further landmark judgment for BTA Bank in one of the biggest fraud cases to have ever come before the English courts.  Today the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of BTA Bank in relation to its appeal over Mr Ablyazov's use of unusual loan arrangements to circumvent spending restrictions contained in the English standard form freezing order.