The private equity press covered fund finance extensively this week. Chris Witkowsky of Buyouts published an article titled “GPs ask LPs for more ability to use fund-level leverage to prop older investments.” The article covers fund efforts to inject liquidity into portfolio companies via NAV-oriented borrowing at the fund level.
The Drawdown featured multiple stories on fund finance this week, covering the ILPA Guidance, EQT’s ESG-Linked Subscription Facility, and a historical piece from guest contributor Michael Mbayi of Wildgen.
Deal flow is up meaningfully for NAV lenders, according to a June 1 Private Funds CFO article citing a number of market specialists. Liquidity continues to be in high demand at both fund and portfolio investment level, and alternative lenders in the NAV space are the primary beneficiaries.
Cadwalader Fund Finance partner Wes Misson will be speaking on a panel titled “Trends in Fund Finance in Light of COVID-19” as part of Practising Law Institute’s (PLI) “One-Hour Briefings” program on July 14. This live webcast will provide an overview of financing document considerations arising from the global coronavirus crisis.
In a Private Funds CFO article, Kathryn Cecil, Jons Lehmann and Jan Sysel, partners at Fried Frank, discuss how to mitigate the increased concentration risks that lenders face when entering into subscription facilities with SMAs, many of which have only a single investor.
Secondaries Investor details potential COVID-19 fallout on GP-led transactions and various options for completing deals when in need of additional capital to support investments.
Here's a look at what we're reading outside the four corners of fund finance.
In today’s FFF: Industry Conversations, we added video and connected with a host of fund finance market participants. Nick Mitra of Natixis joins to give a market update, Tina Meigh of the Maples Group provides an update on the Fund Finance Association, Rory Smith of Brickfield Recruiting offers observations on the hiring market, and Jeff Nagle of Cadwalader summarizes the best practices for LIBOR transition proposed by the ARRC last week. In addition, we feature a short but important discussion with Leslie Gordon, President & CEO of Food Bank For New York City, on the growing hunger challenges presented by COVID-19. Cadwalader’s Mike Mascia hosts and also provides some data from our practice for 2020-to-date to try and forecast transaction volumes for the summer.
Click “Read More” to watch!
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ("SDNY") held that certain syndicated loans sold to institutional investors are not "securities" and rejected claims of violations of federal and state securities laws.
We have two timely articles from Luxembourg law firm SJL Jimenez Lunz this week. In the first article, SJL proposes a quick starting checklist that lenders can run through during COVID-19 lockdowns to determine whether the legal documentation for existing deals is up-to-date or needs to be addressed. In the second, SJL discusses the Professional Guarantee Draft Bill, which has been introduced to the Luxembourg Parliament. This bill introduces a Luxembourg-law-governed guaranty that can be used in security packages for cross-border financing without the risk of requalification.