Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised Suez Environnement on its €350 million issuance of bonds convertible into and/or exchangeable for new or existing shares (OCEANE) due 2020.
The issuance was launched on February 24, 2014 and the net proceeds will be used to optimize the group’s financing costs, diversify its funding sources and for general corporate purposes, including support for future developments.
It is the first issue of equity securities by Suez Environnement since its initial public offering in 2008, on which White & Case also advised. The issuance has been placed successfully with the best conditions of the ranges of issue premiums and interest rates initially set; the issue premium has been set at 30 percent over the Suez Environnement reference share price and the OCEANE will not bear interest.
The underwriting syndicate was led by Société Générale as global coordinator, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and The Royal Bank of Scotland as Joint Lead Managers and Joint Bookrunners.
The White & Case capital markets team in Paris which advised Suez Environnement was led by partners Séverin Robillard and Thomas Le Vert with the support of counsel Elsa Imbernon and associate Tatiana Uskova. Partner Colin Chang handled US law aspects, while tax issues were handled by partner Alexandre Ippolito with support from associate Marcus Schmidbauer.
