Milbank LLP advised an ad hoc group of senior lenders and noteholders to Tele Columbus AG in a transaction that included a €300 million equity injection from Tele Columbus’s majority shareholder, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, and the extension of €1.1 billion of senior secured debt reaching an agreement with Tele Columbus. The transaction closed on March 19, 2024.
Tele Columbus is a leading fiber-optic network operator in Germany, connecting over three million households with high-speed internet, telephone and TV programing. The equity injection will permit Tele Columbus to pursue a transformational capital expenditure program to substantially upgrade Tele Columbus’s existing fiber network.
Paired with Morgan Stanley’s equity injection, senior lenders and noteholders agreed to extend the maturities of €462 million of senior term loans and €650 million of notes to January 2029. The extension terms included a substantial increase in interest rates and exit fees payable to creditors. The ad hoc group also negotiated to include financial covenants, tighter debt terms, incentives for the shareholder to inject further equity capital into the business and Luxembourg security to facilitate a single point of enforcement should a breach arise.
The amendments to the debt documents were implemented by an English Scheme of Arrangement that was sanctioned on February 28, 2024 with high levels of creditor support.
The Milbank team included partners Sarah Levin, Sinjini Saha, Mathias Eisen (Frankfurt), Yushan Ng, Rebecca Marques and Laura Bonamis, special counsel Robert Kastl (Frankfurt) and associates Damilola Odetola, Roza Vanian, Maria Schweinberger, James Szauer and Sebastian Mayr (Frankfurt) and trainee Jemine Barrow.
