Sheikh Abdulrahaman Saleh Al Rajhi sold 300 commercial building once owned by Italy’s electric group Enel to US private equity fund Tpg Special Situations Partners. The news has been delivered officially yesterday after rumors had been published by Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper some days ago.
The deal is referring to a real estate portfolio which the Sheikh had acquired (trough a newco called Excelsia Nove srl) in 2007 for more than 400 million euros from Rreef fund (Deutsche Bank) and Cdc Ixis. The 300 commercial building were part of a bigger portfolio of one thousand buildings once owned by Enel. That deal had been financed with a loan facility issued by Citi, Natixis, Intesa Sanpaolo and Crédit Agricole.
Due to the financial crisi that followed, that deal had a bad performance and Excelsia Nove defaulted on its debt. So the new deal by Tpg include a debt restructuring agreement with the senior lending banks on the basis of the Italian bankrupcty Law (art. 67 Legge Fallimentare), with two of the banks (Citi and Intesa Sanpaolo) that joined Tpg swapping 150 million eurod of credits into equity and subscribing then a 28% stake in the newco controlled by Tpg that is buying the real estate portfolio.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Shearman & Sterling advised Tpg in the deal as for the legal issues while LInklaters supported the fund on fiscal issues. Banks have been advised by Allen&Overy, while the seller has been supported by BonelliErede law firm and by Lazard as for financial issues.
