Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises the senior creditors' coordination committee in the restructuring of the group HIME / SAUR

Clifford Chance advised the Coordination Committee (CoCom) composed of the most important senior creditors of the group HIME/SAUR in relation to the negotiations and the implementation of the financial restructuration of the group.

Further to a bidding process for the acquisition of group HIME/SAUR and more than ten months of negotiations between the group and the CoCom, two conciliation agreements were approved on 26 July 2013 by the Commercial Court of Versailles.

The restructuring plan submitted by the CoCom is a "lender-led" plan, which was unanimously approved by the stakeholders.  Pursuant to this plan, almost forty financial institutions –senior lenders– became shareholders of group HIME/SAUR.

This financial restructuring involved "new money" facilities of a total amount of €200 million for both HIME and SAUR.

Due to the large number of stakeholders and the financial stakes of the restructuring, this "lender-led" operation is the most important ever achieved in France and constitutes a turning point in the French restructuring market.

The Clifford Chance team was led by five partners: Daniel Zerbib, Reinhard Dammann, Gilles Lebreton, Alexandre Lagarrigue and Philip Hertz (London office). The principal attorneys involved were Anne Vrignaud (Counsel), Mary Serhal and Chloé Desreumaux for the financing aspects; Gilles Podeur (Counsel) and Valentine Bleicher for the restructuring aspects; Marianne Pezant (Counsel), Alexandra Salanson (Counsel) and Anna Velitchkova for the equity aspects; and Britta Hardeck for the tax aspect; Cédric Burford (partner) and Gemma Doyle for equity aspects.