February 2011
Deals of the year 2010: Wind Telecommunications €6.6 billion (senior secured bonds and loan facility)
The company faced several headwinds. Despite entering a 20th successive quarter of revenue growth and the early repayment of a €336 million loan in January, Wind’s parent company, Weather Investments, part of the Orascom Group, had announced a planned merger with US-listed Russian telecom operator VimpelCom two weeks previously. "We had to do a bit of work with investors and lenders to focus them on the asset and say whatever happens upstairs you don’t care, you have a ring-fenced financing, it’s not really going to affect you,’’ says Karim Nasr, corporate finance officer at Weather Investments. Less than 10...
