Lawyer Monthly - April 2023

Transactions: Featured Interviews 82 Omnes Capital Invests in Castor & Pollux 86 Gyalou Emporiki Kai Touristiki Monoprosopi’s Bond Issuance 90 The Réunion Region and SEMATRA’s Restructuring of Air Austral The month of March saw several major collapses that sent seismic ripples throughout the world of finance. The first and largest of the headline-making stories was the fall of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)1, a primary lender for many tech-focused businesses internationally. The bank’s downfall saw other major players in the financial services sector rushing to cut rescue deals, the most significant to date being First Citizens’ agreement2 to buy deposits and loans worth around $72 billion from SVB at a discount of $16.5 billion. Meanwhile, HSBC stepped in to acquire SVB’s UK branches for only £1.3 This was not the end of the month’s financial sector turmoil, however, as a crisis of confidence in Credit Suisse’s leadership on the back of CVS’s collapse led to a dangerous decline in the bank’s shares, prompting the Swiss government to broker a rescue deal with Credit Suisse rival UBS Group.4 UBS purchased Credit Suisse for $3 billion, while the Swiss government provided UBS with a backstop of $9 billion and the Swiss National Bank provided more than $100 billion of liquidity to facilitate the deal. Elsewhere, dealmaking has proceeded apace. Australia’s Origin Energy Ltd has agreed to a $10.21 billion takeover5 by a consortium led by Canada’s Brookfield, which will see the company split into two entities between its energy markets and integrated gas businesses. Canadian convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard has also purchased a number of petrol stations from French oil giant TotalEnergies in a plan to turn them into food and services hub. The deal was closed for $3.3 billion.6 Early March also saw the release of new ONS data7 on mergers and acquisitions involving UK companies for the final quarter of 2022, showing a decline in activity but not dousing hopes for a return to pre-2021 levels this year. An M&A rebound for the healthcare sector, which has showed resilience in previous economic downturns, remains on the cards, according to Mike Preston, Private Equity Partner at Cleary Gottlieb. We will continue to monitor changes in activity as they emerge. 1https://www.finance-monthly.com/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-colllapsetriggers-panic/ 2https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/26/first-citizens-to-acquire-siliconvalley-bank/ 3https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/13/hsbc-buys-silicon-valley-bank-ukprotecting-deposits-.html 4https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-creditsuisse-bfac51fa 5https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/origin-energy-signs-102-blntakeover-deal-with-brookfield-consortium-2023-03-27/ 6https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/canadas-couche-tard-talks-33bln-totalenergies-stores-deal-2023-03-16/ 7https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/ changestobusiness/mergersandacquisitions/bulletins/ mergersandacquisitionsinvolvingukcompanies/octobertodecember2022 Mergers & Acquisitions 92 Broadhurst’s Sale of Vel Pitar to Bimbo 93 Herman Senior Acquires ST Marine Support Holding 94 L-GAM and BPI (French Tech Souveraineté) Acquires the Majority of Biose Industrie 95 Wavenet Acquires Fidus Information Security Funds & Investments 96 Kudu Investment Management’s Minority Investment in Variant Investments 97 União Química Farmacêutica Nacional’s BRL330 Million Financing Reorganisation & MBOs 98 Ecovix’s Reorganisation Plan 99 The Buyout of Murray Rix

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