Awards for Excellence 2017
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Rothschild once again proved that an independent firm can hold its own in advisory against both bulge-bracket and regional banks in CEE in the awards period, winning mandates on some of the biggest M&A deals in the region as well as advising on a clutch of high-profile financing transactions.
The latter category included the €2.1 billion recapitalization of Polish mobile operator Play. Rothschild acted as sole financial adviser to the firm and its shareholders on the raising of Zl7 billion ($1.84 billion) of senior bank facilities – one of the largest financings ever completed in the currency – and the issuance of a €500 million payment-in-kind toggle note. The transaction cut Play’s funding costs and extended its maturity profile without affecting the firm’s ratings, thanks to intensive work by Rothschild’s rating advisory team.
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Rothschild was also tapped by two of Ukraine’s biggest companies to advise on multibillion-dollar debt restructurings. Steel maker Metinvest and energy firm DTEK were forced by the adverse operating environment in Ukraine to seek revised lending terms from banks and bondholders late last year. Both debt restructurings – of $2.4 billion for Metinvest and $2.7 billion for DTEK – involved complex multilateral negotiations with creditors across several jurisdictions against a challenging economic and geopolitical backdrop.
Meanwhile, in M&A, Rothschild was one of only two buy-side advisers on the largest deal in central Europe last year, the €7.3 billion acquisition of SABMiller’s CEE portfolio by Japan’s Asahi Group. The firm also advised Qatar Investment Authority on its purchase, together with Glencore, of a 19.5% stake in Rosneft from the Russian state for €10.2 billion.
Other notable mandates included acting for National Bank of Greece on the sale of its Bulgarian assets to KBC, advising BBVA on the purchase of a further 10% of Turkey’s Garanti Bank and helping Mid Europa sell Hungarian telecom Invitel to CEE Equity Partners, a Chinese state-backed private equity firm.
The breadth and depth of expertise demonstrated by these transactions make Rothschild a worthy winner of this year’s award for best bank for advisory.
