Hogan Lovells has advised Monzo, the UK's digital, mobile-only bank, on its biggest ever crowdfunding round. Monzo has just published a prospectus in connection with a £20 million raise from its existing customers. This follows the close of £85m of funding in October this year from General Catalyst, Accel and existing investors, which Taylor Wessing advised on.
DLA Piper has advised Aareal Bank AG in relation to the arrangement of a five-year €447 million financing for a European hotel portfolio managed by Swedish hotel property company Pandox AB.
The portfolio comprises a total of 14 high-quality hotels in the upper full-service segment, in first-class locations in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, with a total of approximately 3,600 rooms – including the Crowne Plaza Brussels – Le Palace, the Radisson Blu in Cologne, and the Park Hotel Amsterdam.
Squire Patton Boggs has announced that it has recruited an employment law team in Paris, comprising Jean-François Rage (partner), Coline Bied-Charreton (of counsel) and Jean-Sébastien Lipski (senior associate). The move further enhances the firm’s already significant employment offering in France.
Lance Jiang, previously co-Head of Legal of Great Wall AMC International Holdings Co. Ltd., a well-known financial institution headquartered in China, is joining Addleshaw Goddard's Hong Kong Corporate practice to help the team resource a growing pipeline of work and target new market share.
Lance will become a Partner upon completion of the relevant Hong Kong Law Society qualifications in Spring 2019.
Xavier Pernot has joined Jeantet as partner to strengthen the firm’s litigation practice with his team composed of a counsel, two associates and an assistant/paralegal.
Xavier Pernot will lead Jeantet’s Litigation-Arbitration-Mediation Department. His multidisciplinary team advises French and international clients on a regular basis (i) in corporate litigation and financing operations, (ii) in commercial litigation, and (iii) in complex industrial and financial litigation.
The Clyde & Co Beijing office has welcomed intellectual property lawyer Yan Gong as a Local Partner and Head of the China Trademark practice in the firm’s Chinese Joint Law Venture (JLV) Clyde & Co Westlink.
Gong joins from Beijing IP specialist firm China PAT Intellectual Property Office, where she was a partner. Gong specialises in trademark prosecution work and also advises on related investigations and litigation. Previously, she practiced at Bird & Bird in Beijing and at Australian firm Allens.
Leading global law firm Baker McKenzie advised Moroccan utility Office National de l’Électricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) on the on the €230 million, 180MW Midelt Wind Farm in Morocco, which reached financial close on 8 November 2018, with a sponsor consortium of ENEL Green Power (ITA) and Nareva Holding (MOR) and ONEE. The financing was provided to the ONEE by international institutions including KfW, EU and the EIB and on-lent by the ONEE to the project company. ONEE will purchase electricity produced by the wind farm under a 20-year PPA.
Gide acted as underwriters' counsel in a multi-tranche senior bond issuance of USD 3.75 billion by EDF in the context of its return to the USD 144A/RegS bond market.
Gide has advised an underwriting syndicate of eight banks in connection with a senior bond offering of USD 3.75 billion by EDF, by way of a Rule 144A private placement in September. This issuance enables EDF to further strengthen the structure of its balance sheet, as well as refinance upcoming maturities.
The USD 3.75 billion senior bond offering included three tranches:
Ashurst advised all institutional sellers on the disposal of open-ended real estate funds special fund (AIF) BEOS Corporate Real Estate Germany I to Helaba Invest Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH. The specialty funds currently holds 21 commercial properties all over Germany for institutional investors. In the course of the transaction the fund shares were transferred instead of the properties (Anteilscheingeschäft). The purchase price amounted to more than € 500 million.
International law firm Bird & Bird has advised Pioneer Point Partners, a private investment partnership that specialises in infrastructure assets in the energy and environmental sectors, on the acquisition of UK energy platform, Brockwell Energy Limited.
Brockwell Energy Limited has a range of energy-from-waste and onshore wind projects in Scotland with a potential capital value of £800 million. Pioneer acquired Brockwell in partnership with global investment firm Davidson Kempner.