US firms Ropes & Gray and Latham & Watkins won roles advising on telecommunications group Altice’s purchase of Portuguese telecoms rival Oi’s assets worth €7.4bn on a cash and debt-free free basis.
Ropes & Gray are acting for Altice with a transatlantic team led by City finance partner Michael Kazakevich and New York-based partner Alex Zeltser advising on financial aspects including loan structures, revolving credit facilities and bonds.
Latham & Watkins’s team are representing the underwriters which comprise a group of 14 banks including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Nomura. London based capital markets partner Scott Colwell advised on high yield bonds, finance partner Dan Maze advised on English law and New York finance partner Melissa Alwang on US term loans.
Altice has agreed to issue €4.6bn in high yield bonds and has arranged a €825m seven year term loan. The acquisition was approved last week by shareholders of Oi subsidiary Portugal Telecom and on Monday bondholders of the company agreed as long as the proceeds were used to help consolidate the Brazilian telecoms market or to pay down debt. The financing is expected to close early next week.
Altice announced in November last year that it entered into exclusive negotiations with Oi to agree the purchase of its Portuguese assets Portugal Telecom. A month later, it had signed a definitive agreement with Oi to purchase Portugal Telecom at an enterprise value of €7.4bn on a cash and debt-free free basis which included a €500m consideration related to the future revenue generation of Portugal Telecom.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk