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Norton Rose Fulbright Advises on High-Yield Bond Offering of Play

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In an item related to the story reported by CEE Legal Matters on February 7,  Norton Rose Fulbright has announced that it advised J.P. Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch as global coordinators on the EUR 900 million high-yield bond offering of P4 Sp. (the Polish mobile network operator operating under the ”PLAY” brand).

The funds raised were used to refinance PLAY’s existing funding arrangements and distributed to PLAY’s shareholders. The debt offering consisted of EUR 600 million fixed rate senior secured notes due in 2019, PLN 130 million (EUR 30 million) floating rate senior secured notes due in 2019, and EUR 270 million fixed rate senior notes due in 2019. The transaction also involved a PLN 400 million revolving credit facility granted to PLAY by Bank Zachodni WBK (Santander Group) and Alior Bank.

Norton Rose described the transaction as “one of the largest ever EUR denominated high-yield bond offerings made by a company based in Central and Eastern Europe.”

Grzegorz Dyczkowski, Partner in the Warsaw office of Norton Rose Fulbright, commented that:“The issuance of high-yield bonds by PLAY is one of the most significant transactions in the Polish and European debt securities market in recent years. Polish companies are with increasing frequency seeking financing from the international capital markets in addition to or in place of bank financing. We are very pleased that we have, in cooperation with our clients, PLAY Group and other advisers, brought this transaction to a close within an extremely short timeframe and at a price very advantageous to PLAY.”

The Warsaw team was led by Partners Dyczkowski and Piotr Strawa, assisted by Tomasz Rogalski, Marta Kawecka, Krzysztof Gorzelak, Agnieszka Braciszewska, Joanna Braciszewska-Szarapa, Jan Grochowicz, Michal Blaszkiewicz, Adrian Kozinski, Konrad Leszko, Daniel Popek and Aneta Janecka.

Latham & Watkins acted as English and New York legal counsel to the global coordinators. PLAY was advised by White & Case. Mandated lead arrangers and agent under the revolving credit facility were advised by CMS Cameron McKenna.

Citibank, N.A., London Branch acted as security agent and was advised by Reed Smith.