Nick Grootes

Director

Emailnick.grootes@dlapiper.com

Call+27 (0)11 302 0837

Johannesburg

About

Areas of FocusFinance Corporate

Bar admissionsAttorney of the High Court of South Africa

EXPERIENCE

Advising a syndicate of four South African lenders with significant exposure to EOH Mthombo, a listed information services company on their distressed debt restructuring.
Advising RMB as coordinator, and a syndicate of South African banks (Absa, RMB, Standard Bank and Nedbank) on the refinancing of over ZAR9bn debt facilities to Ardagh Glass South Africa and its subsidiaries in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria.
Advising Growthpoint Investec African Properties (now Lango Real Estate) in respect of the debt restructuring of USD300m in facilities provided by RMB and Standard Bank (through its Stanbic subsidiaries) in Mauritius, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, secured against property assets in the retail and office sectors across multiple African jurisdictions.
Advising the senior lenders (Intertoll Investments B.V., Bank Pekao, Kommunalkredit, Rivage Investments) on a transaction whereby a third party lender was providing an LC facility into a complex debt structure and sharing in senior lender security in certain circumstances only. The transaction involved security arrangements between the UK, Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Netherlands - deal value EUR80m.
Advising Cell C, RMB, Absa and Ninety-One (previously Investec Asset Management) on their airtime purchase facility agreement.
Advising Pareto, Absa, RMB and Standard Bank as lenders on a ZAR2,7bn and EUR110m Facilities Agreement to Pareto Limited, a property fund owned by the Government Employees Pension in South Africa which manages significant investments in retail properties in South Africa.
Advising Tharisa Minerals in respect of an off-take financed transaction for facilities of up to USD130m.
Advising Liberty Two Degrees on the spin out of Liberty Two Degrees from Liberty and its independent listing on the JSE, as well as the incurrence of debt facilities with Absa, SBSA and Nedbank.
Advising Standard Bank (and subsequently Standard Bank and Nedbank) on certain financing transactions for Capital Drilling, an international mining and drilling services company, as well as a USD50m RCF with security across Egypt, Tanzania, Mauritius and Vancouver over various drill rig assets, shares and material contract rights.
Advising Stanbic Bank Kenya on various transactions involving the Rai group of companies (operated out of Kenya by their corporate advisers, the Horizon Group). These transactions involved acquisition facilities in the packaging and bottled water industries and real estate financing transactions in Kenya.