Slaughter and May advised Pension Insurance Corporation plc on its issuance of £250 million Subordinated Notes due 2026. The Notes bear interest at the rate of 8 per cent. per annum and are listed on the Regulated Market of the London Stock Exchange. Morgan Stanley acted as lead manager and sole structuring adviser.

Contacts

Financing: Guy O’Keefe (partner), Andrew Chaplin (associate); Insurance: Oliver Wareham (partner), Dominic Brown (associate)

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised leading non-bank lender Pepper Group Limited (ASX:PEP) on completing its third and final whole loan sale for 2016, selling a A$200 million portfolio of residential mortgage loans.

This transaction brings Pepper’s total whole loan sales for 2016 to A$1 billion, following earlier whole loan sales this year worth A$400m each.

The Herbert Smith Freehills team was led by partner Mark Currell, who was supported by senior associate Jacob Kahwaji.

Herbert Smith Freehills has acted for Sierra Rutile Limited, an AIM-listed BVI company with assets in Sierra Leone, on its successful refinancing of its debt facilities with Nedbank Corporate and Investment Bank, a division of Nedbank Limited.

Sierra Rutile Limited is a leading mineral sands company and operates assets in the Republic of Sierra Leone which centre on the world-class natural rutile deposit in the southwest of the country. The deposit is one of the largest natural rutile deposits in the world.

Credit Suisse AG acted as lead manager together with Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd and Bank Vontobel AG as co-managers. The bonds have been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

The proceeds from the issue of the bonds were used to refinance a syndicated loan which had been underwritten and funded by Credit Suisse AG and applied to partially finance the acquisition of the Finacrotec Group.

Slaughter and May advised the newly merged Ladbrokes Coral Group on the issue of £400,000,000 5.125 per cent. notes by Ladbrokes Group Finance plc, guaranteed by Ladbrokes Coral Group plc. The notes are listed on the Official List of the United Kingdom Listing Authority and are admitted to trading on the Regulated Market of the London Stock Exchange.

Barclays Bank PLC, Lloyds Bank plc, MUFG Securities EMEA plc and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc acted as Joint Active Lead Bookrunners. Mediobanca Banca di Credito Finanziario S.p.A. acted as Joint Lead Bookrunner.

Clifford Chance has advised a group of banks on multiple EDF bond issuances with a market value totalling almost €5 billion, including two U.S. dollar denominated bonds listed on the Taipei Exchange ("Formosa Bonds"), a Euro-denominated Green Bond issuance and a Euro-denominated senior vanilla notes issuance under its €45,000,000 Euro Medium Term Note Programme.

1. A total of U.S.$ 2.655 billion was raised through the two senior Formosa Bonds on 21 October 2016:

Clifford Chance advised the joint lead managers (Bank of China Limited, London Branch, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, BOCI Asia Limited, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Barclays Bank PLC, China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation Limited, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Merrill Lynch International, Société Générale and Standard Chartered Bank) on Bank of China Limited's issuance of $500 million green covered bonds due 2019 under the Bank's US$5 billion Medium Term Note Programme.

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP advised Goshawk Aviation Group on the successful USD 95 million Schuldschein issuance. Norddeutsche Landesbank, Commerzbank and Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen acted as joint lead managers.

Baker & McKenzie assisted UniCredit Group in relation to securing the performance of receivables arising from financial leases from UniCredit Leasing SpA for approximately EUR 3.8 billion. The special purpose entity Locat SV S.r.l financed the operation through the issuance of asset-backed securities listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange to constitute a guarantee for the program of monetary policy operations of the parent company UniCredit S.p.A. at the European Central Bank.

Slaughter and May, Hong Kong, advised Wing Tai Properties Limited on the annual update of the US$1 billion Medium Term Note Programme of Wing Tai Properties (Finance) Limited, its wholly-owned subsidiary.

Notes issued under the programme are guaranteed by Wing Tai Properties Limited. HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank are the Arrangers under the programme.

Contacts
Roger Cheng (partner), Alison Tsoi (associate)