Search results for

Petroleos de Venezuela has issued US$1.8 billion of notes through a special purpose financing vehicle, PDVSA Finance. The proceeds of the five tranche Rule 144A offering are intended to purchase existing and future accounts receivables arising from export sales of crude oil to the US. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter was the lead underwriter for the offering. US firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton acted as New York counsel to PVDSA Finance and Petroleos de Venezuela. The team included partners Peter Karasz, an international finance and Venezuela specialist, and Andres de la Cruz, a corporate finance and securities partner. Advice on Cayman Islands law to PVDSA was provided by WS Walker & Company.

Paragon has completed a £300 million (US$498 million) securitization of a portfolio of mixed consumer loans, including car loans, timeshare loans and stocking finance agreements. It is a first for Paragon, traditionally a securitizer of mortgages. The floating rate notes were issued through a special purpose vehicle, Finance for People (No. 3). JP Morgan acted as lead manager and Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York as trustee. Slaughter and May advised Paragon and Finance for People, with a team led by corporate partners Chris Smith and Andrew McLean. Also involved on the issuer's side are Tods Murray, providing Scots law advice and L'Estrange & Brett providing Irish law advice.

Brown & Wood, Blake Dawson Waldron, Allen Allen & Hemsley and Mallesons Stephen Jaques are all advising on Australia's first global bond issue which is backed by non-US mortgages. Australian bank Westpac lauched its US$1.4 billion offering on June 4 with ratings from Moodys, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch, the first time a bond issue has been rated by all three agencies.

The minister of economic affairs has proposed the establishment of a guarantee fund for contributors and investors in credit institutions. The proposed act, amending the 1995 act, incorporates the EU directive on investor guarantee funds. It will establish a joint regulation of guarantee schemes for contributors and investors in credit institutions including banks, mortgage credit institutions and stockbrokers. If any institution covered by the act becomes bankrupt, any cash deposits will consequently be covered up to Dkr300,000 (US$42,000) and security deposits will be covered up to Dkr150,000.

On March 1 1998, an amendment of the Austrian Investment Fund Act (Investmentfondsgesetz) entered into force. New types of investment funds and provisions dealing with fund management and marketing activities were introduced.

The merger of two New York energy companies, Con Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities, announced May 11 1998, is expected to increase efficiency and result in net savings of up to US$50 million a year. Cravath Swaine and Moore, New York, is advising Con Edison in the US$790 million acquisition of O&R. The team of lawyers from Cravath Swaine is headed by M&A partner George Belicic.

On May 13 1998 Debevoise & Plimpton appointed Ric Evans as its presiding partner. He takes over from Barry Bryan, who led the firm for five years and is stepping down as he approaches retirement. Evans is from the firm's litigation department; its strongest area. Within a week of Evans's appointment the firm has declared its intention to expand its UK capabilities. Partners in the firm have confirmed that the London office is looking to make its first UK corporate hire. It is a further sign that Debevoise is shaking off its once conservative image. In the last 10 years the firm wrangled with the opposing forces of modernization and tradition. Before 1989 it had only three offices worldwide: New York, which opened in 1931; Paris, in 1964 and Washington DC, in 1982.

UK firm Norton Rose is ending its association in Hong Kong with local firm Johnson Stokes & Master, with effect from March 31 1999. From this date a clause in the 1976 association agreement will prevent Norton Rose from carrying on a legal practice in Hong Kong for three years. Roger Birkby, Norton Rose managing partner, says: "We have grown more international and we have to work for our clients wherever in the world they want us to. This proved difficult in Hong Kong, because the terms of the association did not allow us to work in areas such as project finance or asset finance." Norton Rose in Hong Kong provides primarily corporate finance, banking and marine litigation services. According to Birkby, several attempts to re-negotiate the terms of the association failed.

Freshfields and Baker & McKenzie advised on more privatization deals than any other firms in 1997. In what was a record year both firms advised on 117 transactions; more than double that of third-placed firm Linklaters & Paines. Last year the total value of privatizations topped US$160 billion, according to league tables published in Privatisation International. Freshfields, which heads the table because of the higher value of its transactions, benefited from a bumper year in Asia, despite the slowdown towards the end of the year.

In Brussels, White & Case has lost a senior partner to a new Baker & McKenzie venture. Aristoteles Kaplanidis had been with Forrester Norall & Sutton for 12 years before its merger with White & Case (see IFLRev, January 1998, page 3). He is now to have executive responsibility for a new centre set up by Baker & McKenzie to provide clients with specialized EU advice. Kaplanidis stresses simply that the offer from Baker & McKenzie came at the right time for him. He says of his three months with White & Case: "There were a lot of changes going on at Forrester which, to be honest, made me think twice about leaving. There were good prospects and during my time there I worked on some very interesting things ... The merger was not the reason I moved."