Benoit Lavigne

Partner Corporate, Finance and Investments

London: +44 20 7551 2170 [email protected]

Benoit Lavigne is a partner in King & Spalding’s Corporate, Finance and Investments practice, located in our London office.

Mr. Lavigne focuses his practice in advising private credit providers and other underwriters as well as borrowers, and has extensive experience in numerous complex finance matters. His finance work includes acquisition finance, general corporate lending, asset-based lending, restructuring, and workouts.

Mr. Lavigne has additional vast experience in advising clients on complex, cross-border finance matters. His advising on unique and innovative financings have included the first European super senior facility coupled with a US term loan B, Europe’s first margin loan to IPO financing, and Europe’s first quadruple Luxco acquisition financing structure.

Matters

Event Driven Financings

Advising a global opportunities fund with respect to a holdco facility made available to a borrower to refinance its balance sheet.

Advising Macquarie Capital in connection with a number of matters including financing a sale and leaseback transaction for a London based private equity sponsor; representing them on acquisitions; and advising on 1.5x lien incremental facilities for refinancing purposes.

Acting for 2L lenders in connection with a Covid-19 liquidity management exercise which included the conversion of 2L interest in the form of synthetic PIK interest.

Acting for the ad hoc committee of Senior Unsecured Noteholders of Towergate Insurance in connection with its financial restructuring.

Acting for Anchorage Capital in connection with the restructuring and loan to own by Triton of the Stabilus group and the subsequent refinancing of the group’s facilities.

Acting for the mandated lead arrangers on a €1.4 billion corporate acquisition financing in the context of a takeover defence mechanism.

1 www.kslaw.com 1 Acting for the steering committee of mezzanine lenders in connection with the restructuring of the circa €1 billion debt facilities of the Orion Cable GmbH group of companies.

Underwriter Representations

Advised Ares Management as sole term and RCF lender in respect of Searchlight Capital Partners’ acquisition of Global Risk Partners, a leading independent insurance intermediary.

Advised Bridgepoint Credit (formerly EQT Credit), as sole term lender in respect of Oakley Capital’s acquisition of Seagull and Videotel. The drawn committed financing of EQT Credit (through its Direct Lending investment strategy) at first financial close was the USD equivalent of $130 million.

Advised Pemberton Asset Management, the diversified asset manager backed by one of Europe’s largest insurers, Legal & General Group Plc, and New York-based private equity firm GoldPoint Partners as second lien lenders in connection with a cross-border first and second lien refinancing. The second lien financing is made up of a fully allocated $155 million second-lien tranche split between dollar and sterling tranches.

Advised Vector Capital in its agreement to provide a $100 million second lien term loan to support Permira Funds’ acquisition of Synamedia, a leading video software solutions provider, from Cisco.

Advising JP Morgan with respect to various derivative loan facilities, including refinancings thereof.

Acting for the arrangers and underwriters on the €3bn (equivalent) bond and €1.1bn revolving credit facilities put in place in connection with the combination of the Lindorff Group and Intrum Justitia.

Acting for Deutsche Bank and Nordea in connection with the €1.45 billion financing of Nordic Capital’s acquisition of a majority stake in Norway based Lindorff, one of Europe’s leading providers of debt related administrative services.

Acting for, among others, Morgan Stanley, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and ING Bank N.V. on a $1.0 billion covenant lite term loan, a €250 million senior notes issuance and €125 million in other bank financing in connection with the acquisition by Altice VII S.à r.l. of Groupe Outremer Telecom S.A. and Oni SGPS S.A. and the fold-in of certain businesses owned by Altice VII S.à r.l. into an existing restricted financing group.

Acting for, among others, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, ING and JP Morgan on the US$1.1 billion financing raised by Altice VII S.à r.l. in connection with the take-private and refinancing of HOT-Telecommunications Systems Ltd., an Israeli telecommunications company.

Representing Deutsche Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland and others as global coordinators, bookrunning managers and initial purchasers in connection with the refinancing of existing facilities made available to the Viridian group. The transaction involved a restructuring of a junior debt piece together with the refinancing of existing senior facilities in excess of €1 billion.

Acting for Credit Suisse as sole arranger, bookrunner, agent and security agent in connection with the £150 million refinancing for The O2 Arena.

Acting for JP Morgan, as global coordinator, on a transaction involving the reorganisation of the

2 www.kslaw.com 2 corporate structure of a French borrower and its subsidiaries. The financing involved a €900 million bridge to securitization take-out borrowing base facility, a €350 million senior term and revolving credit facility and a €200,000,000 bond.

Borrower Representations

Acting for a corporate borrower with respect to various back-leverage facilities ranging from US$1 bn to US$5 billion equivalent in principal committed amount.

Acting for Samsonite International S.A., the world’s largest travel luggage company, on the offering of €350 million 3.5% Senior Notes due 2026 by Samsonite Finco S.a r.l.

Acting for Altice NV on its cross-border equity and debt financing for the acquisition of Cablevision, the leading cable system operator in the New York metropolitan area. The $10.6 billion debt financing package included a $3.8 billion covenant lite term loan, $2 billion revolving facility and three tranches of high yield notes: the offering of US$1.8 billion 101/8% Senior Notes due 2023, US$2 billion 107/8% Senior Notes due 2025 and US$1 billion 65/8% Senior Guaranteed Notes due 2025 and Altice NV also raised €1.6 billion via an equity placement through the accelerated book build method.

Acting for Altice Financing S.A. in connection with the offering of US$2.75 billion 7½% Senior Secured Notes due 2026 to refinance certain existing Senior Secured Notes and Term Loan Facilities.

Acting for Numericable-SFR in relation to its US$5.1 billion high yield bond offering and refinancing of existing debt.

Acting for Altice S.A. on the financing for the acquisition by Altice of Suddenlink, the seventh largest cable system operator in the United States.

Acting for Altice and Numericable Group in their jumbo US$21.9 billion cross-border bank and bond financing for the acquisition of French telecoms operator SFR.

Acting for Altice S.A. on the financing for the acquisition by Altice of PT Portugal SGPS, S.A. and certain other entities that make up the Portugal Telecom Group, a leading provider of integrated telecommunication services to residential and corporate customers in Portugal from Oi S.A.

Acting for Thomas Cook Group Plc on its £1.6 billion refinancing. Primary role involved advising Thomas Cook as lead counsel on both the €525 million underwritten bridge loan and high yield bond placement of the same size and collaborating with another law firm on the accompanying £425 million equity rights issue and £691 million bank re-financing.

Acting for a subsidiary of the investment arm of a sovereign entity in connection with a US$5 billion revolving margin facility.

Acting for Qatar Holding in connection with its £1.5 billion acquisition of Harrods.

Credentials EDUCATION LL.B., University of Victoria LL.L., University of Ottawa, Canada

ADMISSIONS

3 www.kslaw.com 3 England and Wales Québec

LANGUAGES French

Recognition Recommended: Finance: Bank Lending: Investment Grade Debt and Syndicated Loans

LEGAL 500 UK 2021

Insights NEWSLETTER June 28, 2021 Financial Services Focus - June 2021

News IN THE NEWS June 28, 2021 • Source: The Lawyer, Law360 and Legal Business Finance partner Benoit Lavigne joins the firm’s Corporate, Finance and Investments practice group in London

PRESS RELEASE June 28, 2021 King & Spalding Hires Finance Partner Benoit Lavigne in London

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