Europe Financial Restructuring

Our London-based European financial restructuring practice is the core component of our wider global financial restructuring team operating across London, Hong Kong, New York, Dallas and Washington, D.C. We are consistently ranked as amongst the best by The Times, Band 1 by Chambers UK, Tier 1 by The Legal 500 UK and Restructuring Team of the Year by the Legal Business Awards.

We have extensive experience in representing creditors on large-scale and complex restructurings, recapitalizations and financings for distressed companies. Our well-established and experienced lawyers are highly adept at handling complex restructurings and structured finance arrangements, and have advised on some of the most significant cross-border restructurings in the market.

Broad Client Base

Our enviable portfolio of clients includes many of the world’s leading financial institutions, specialist investment funds, debt investors, insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds and more. We advise them on their stressed and distressed investments in maximizing the value of those investments, and we are particularly effective at harmonizing divergent interests and building consensus.

Clients turning to us for advice come from a wide range of sectors, including traditional and renewable energy, financial services, private equity, insurance, technology, telecommunications, business services and outsourcing, transportation, shipping, maritime and manufacturing.

Dedicated Team

We have one of the largest dedicated restructuring and insolvency teams in London, and we work closely with our financial restructuring lawyers in the United States and Hong Kong on multijurisdictional and often precedent-setting cases.

Our European corporate and finance teams sit directly alongside our financial restructuring team. We represent institutional investors, investment funds, borrowers and other parties that are active across the private equity and finance markets, in relation to “rescue” and special situations acquisitions and financings, and debt capital markets.

Representative Work

Our experience includes advising on the following groundbreaking restructurings, among many others:

Clarks: Counsel to the private placement noteholders of Clarks, a shoe manufacturer and retailer, that were key stakeholders in the negotiation of the restructuring of the Clarks group.
ED&F Man Treasury Management: Counsel to various private placement noteholders on the refinancing of more than $1 billion in debt, including the grant of new security instruments in various jurisdictions. Restructuring Deal of the Year (IFLR Europe Awards).
Hurricane Energy: Counsel to the ad hoc committee of convertible bondholders on the financial restructuring of Hurricane Energy, U.K.-based oil exploration and production company focused on naturally fractured basement reservoirs.
Intu Metrocentre: Counsel to the ad hoc committee of holders on the restructuring of £485 million notes issued by intu Metrocentre Finance plc against the intu Metrocentre shopping centre and adjacent retail park in the United Kingdom.
Noble Group: Counsel to an ad hoc committee of unsecured creditors on the $3.5-billion financial restructuring of Noble Group, a worldwide commodities supply chain and trading company.
Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC): Counsel to the private placement noteholders in relation to a waiver and deferral arrangement implemented through an Irish scheme of arrangement, and on a subsequent chapter 11 restructuring of the group’s more than $6 billion in debt.
Nostrum: Counsel to the ad hoc committee of noteholders on the $1.125-billion financial restructuring of Nostrum Oil & Gas, an oil and gas exploration and production company operating in Kazakhstan.
Polarcus: Counsel to the largest secured bondholder of Polarcus Limited, a marine seismic exploration business, on the liquidation of Polarcus Limited and the transfer of secured assets to a company owned by the bondholders.
Premier Oil: Counsel to an ad hoc group of creditors of Premier Oil on the merger of Premier Oil with Chrysaor Holdings Limited and the restructuring of Premier Oil’s $2.7 billion of debt.
Prosafe: Counsel to an ad hoc committee of lenders under the $1.3-million senior secured facility borrowed by Prosafe, the owner and operator of the largest and most versatile fleet of semi-submersible accommodation vessels in the world.
Seadrill (now called Paratus Energy): Counsel to an ad hoc group of noteholders on the chapter 11 restructuring of Seadrill New Finance Limited.
Valaris: English counsel to the ad hoc committee of noteholders on the financial restructuring of Valaris and its outstanding debt liabilities, including the notes issued by Valaris and its subsidiaries.