Groupe Eurotunnel recognised for Best Financial Deal of the Year 2007 by the « Club des Trente »*
The “Club des Trente”, composed of the Chief Executives and Finance Directors of the largest listed French companies, yesterday, 15 May 2008, named Groupe Eurotunnel as laureate of its Best Financial Deal of the Year award.
This award is for the financial restructuring of the group. For the Club des Trente, “this operation has, above all, enabled an emblematic European company to be saved and has preserved value for retail shareholders through the use of a large palette of financial and legal innovation”.
Having preserved shareholders interests to a maximum, this restructuring enabled the reduction of the debt by €5 billion, bringing it down from €9.2 billion to just €4.2 billion.
Groupe Eurotunnel’s advisors for the financial restructuring were:
For the financing: Lazard Frères
For the legal aspects: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Veil Jourde and Foucaud Tchekhoff Pochet et associés.
Jacques Gounon, Chairman and Chief Executive of Groupe Eurotunnel declared,
“This distinction accorded by the prestigious “Club des Trente” underlines Eurotunnel’s financial restructuring. With the current rights issue**, which seeks to strengthen its shareholder base, the group has definitively turned the page to enter the era of development”.
*Group of 30
**Rights issue guaranteed by a banking syndicate led by Lehman Brothers
