Linklaters advised Kartesia Credit Opportunities, a Luxembourg debt fund, as lender of a secured unitranche and Capex bond financing for the acquisition of the German restaurant chain Sausalitos by Ergon Capital Partners. Seller is the private equity investor EQT, who had held 47 per cent. of the company shares. With the current closing, the transaction is brought to a successful conclusion.

The financing was structured as a secured bond, with Kartesia as the initial bondholder. The unitranche bond was issued at closing by the German acquisition company. The financing documentation provides that other so-called “Capex bonds” may be issued to finance the capital expenditures of Sausalito Group.

The remarkable financing structure is the first of its kind: Under the leadership of Marc Trinkaus, Dr Christian Storck and Steffen Schellschmidt, Linklaters has created a "„secured unitranche acquisition and capex-bond“ for the German mid-cap market. Unitranche financing that combines both senior and subordinated debt components in one tranche are not new and are regularly used in particular in the USA and in European countries other than Germany. Gradually, unitranche financings are being adopted by the German mid-cap market and are especially appreciated by sectors with strong investments due to the uniform structure with a bullet maturity. The bond features make this transaction, however, unique.

A Linklaters team led by Marc Trinkaus (Banking, Frankfurt), Dr Christian Storck (Capital Markets, Frankfurt) and Steffen Schellschmidt (Banking, Frankfurt) advised on the deal. The team also included Dr Michael Ehret (Tax, Frankfurt), Dr Sebastian Daub (Corporate, Frankfurt), Helen Hubert, Przemyslaw Lipin, Fabian Neumeier (all Banking, Frankfurt), Daria Latysheva, Maria Maulhardt (both Capital Markets, Frankfurt) and Mathias Bülow (Corporate, Frankfurt).