HFW advises on €650 Million secured credit facilities for Stena AB

Global, sector-focused law firm HFW has advised the mandated lead arrangers and coordinating bookrunners on a secured €650 million revolving credit and €88 million standby facility for Swedish shipowner Stena AB.

HFW acted for Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (publ) as documentation agent and coordinating bookrunner (with Nordea Bank Abp, filial i Norge, Svenska Handelsbanken AB (publ), and Swedbank AB (publ) also acting as coordinating bookrunners) on the transaction, representing a refinancing of Stena’s existing revolving credit facility and to provide working capital for general corporate purposes.

The new facility has a 5-year maturity (with 2-year extension option) and is provided by a syndicate of 13 lenders.  The facilities were secured by ship mortgages over 20 vessels flagged across a number of jurisdictions including Sweden, Cyprus, Isle of Man, UK, the Netherlands, France and Denmark and first legal charges over ports located in Scotland, Wales and the Netherlands.

HFW’s multijurisdictional team comprised John Forrester (Partner, Singapore); Katherine Noble (Legal Director, London); Skye Reynolds (Associate, London) with assistance from Jean-Marc Zampa (Partner, Paris) and François de Geofroy (Associate, Paris) for the French aspects and Christian Taylor (Consultant, London) for the real estate aspects.