Shearman & Sterling advises Barclays on Italian Acquisition

27 November, 2008

The London office of international law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP advised Investcorp and Barclays Private Equity on their successful acquisition of Milan-based N&W Global Vending from Merrill Lynch Private Equity and Argan Capital. The deal, which closed successfully this month, involved the acquirers raising EURO;600 million in leveraged loans in probably the most challenging market conditions for decades.

The acquisition involved raising senior debt from a syndicate of eight banks – Bank of Ireland, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Calyon, ING, Intesa SanPaolo, Natixis and Société Générale – and mezzanine debt from Intermediate Capital Group. Club deals are a feature of the post-credit crunch environment but the size of the bank group was indicative of difficult market conditions and presented an additional challenge to successfully negotiating and closing the deal on a tight time frame.

The fact that the target – N&W Global Vending, Europe’s largest vending and coffee machine manufacturer – was Italian, also meant that the deal involved a complex financing structure. The acquisition is believed to be the biggest leveraged buyout in Italy so far for 2008.

Anthony Ward, the London-based Shearman & Sterling bank finance partner who led the team advising the acquirers, said: ‘In order to put a deal like this together in the current market environment you need to have a keen appreciation of what both the banks and the sponsors care about so that you can provide pragmatic, commercially focused advice to your clients and get the deal done.’