Asian Team Picks Up Top Awards From Finance Asia and IFR Asia For Adaro and BUMA Deals
HONG KONG, December 22, 2009 – Two of Asia’s most respected financial publications have given awards for two Indonesian deals in which Milbank played a lead role. Finance Asia awarded “Best Asian High Yield Deal” to the US$800 million 10-year senior notes issued by Adaro Indonesia. Finance Asia and IFR Asia awarded “Best Indonesia Deal” and “Indonesian Capital Markets Deal of the Year” respectively to the US$1 billion Bukit Makmur Mandiri Utama (BUMA) takeover and financing.
Milbank has worked as counsel to Adaro since its LBO in 2005. In less than four years, Adaro has moved from being a highly leveraged credit to almost investment grade status. The note covenants were among the most favorable obtained by a non-investment grade issuer. Finance Asia noted that the issue “was both upsized and aggressively priced at a time when Asia's high yield bond market had barely emerged from an 18-month hibernation. It was the first ever 10-year Indonesian private sector corporate high yield bond and the largest of any maturity. It paid a 7.75% yield…and attracted an order book worth US$5.75 billion from more than 260 accounts around the world.”
Milbank’s team on the Adaro deal included partners Anthony Root and David Zemans and associates Andrew Yang and Wei Xiao.
The BUMA deal won for its complexity and involved the reverse takeover of BUMA by Delta Dunia and Northstar Pacific Partners (an affiliate of TPG), through a US$983 million LBO financing package, which included a US$285 million syndicated loan, a US$315 million high yield bond and a US$383 million private placement of Delta shares by Northstar and separate US$350 million purchase of Delta shares by Northstar. The multiple parties and the many distinct, but overlapping parts of the overall transaction made this a uniquely challenging deal to negotiate and close. IFR Asia noted that “The financing straddled multiple asset classes and was critical to the success of the buyout.” Milbank advised Northstar on all aspects of the deal and was instrumental in managing the execution and closing of the entire transaction.
The BUMA deal team was led by David Zemans and included senior associate Jacqueline Chan, with associates Ee-Ing Ong and Peter Norman in Singapore.