Backup Banking and Finance

About Trilegal’s Banking and Finance Practice

Our Banking and Finance practice’s reputation as a market leader has been built on the foundation of an intuitive commercial understanding of what our clients want to achieve, the quality of our documentation, and our ability to competently deliver the right outcomes within tight timeframes.

Our Partners regularly advise clients on established as well as emerging products in a dynamic legal and regulatory environment. We provide a focused, pragmatic approach, with fee transparency, and highly effective, technology-driven transaction management.

We represent lenders and borrowers across a wide spectrum covering sponsors and corporates. Our key clients include:

• Major domestic banks such as ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank
• Foreign banks such as Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Barclays, Nomura and Rabobank
• Multilateral agencies such as IFC, US Exim Bank, and UK’s CDC Group
• Sponsors such as Brookfield and Blackstone
• Non-banking financial companies and offshore credit funds such as Edelweiss, SSG, Piramal Capital and Housing Finance, KKR, and Värde Partners

We work on a range of domestic and cross border structured financing transactions with varied complexity, covering acquisition finance, project finance, private DCM, securitisation, and debt restructuring. This includes distressed investments, enforcement and winding up, advisory, regulatory, and mergers and acquisitions in the financial services sector.

Select Representative Experience/Clients

Our Partner expertise extends across key areas related to structured finance, term and syndicated loans, private placements of debt notes and ECBs. Below is a list of some key clients we have advised on such matters.

• Advised CDC Group PLC in relation to its subscription to pooled non-convertible debentures issued by several microfinance institutions in India which were partly credit enhanced by Northern Arc Capital Ltd. This transaction was one of the first few pooled bond issuance deals done in Indian market. We advised on all aspects of the transaction as lender counsel and led the review and negotiation of the financing documents and offer documents
• Represented Piramal Capital Housing Finance Ltd in relation to their successful bid for the acquisition of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. The initial scope of work included conducting due diligence of the retail and wholesale lending portfolio of DHFL, and thereafter extended to implementing various aspects of implementing the approved resolution plan which included discharging a wide range of onshore and offshore creditors through cash settlement as well as issuing long term debt. This was the first successful resolution plan of an NBFC under the IBC framework in India
• Represented CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd (CG Power) in relation to restructuring of its debts under a resolution plan in accordance with the Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets dated 7 June 2019 issued by the Reserve Bank of India with State Bank of India acting as the lead bank. The resolution plan, involving acquisition of majority shareholding in CG Power by a successful bidder and effecting a change in the management and control of CG Power, and inter alia included settlement of amounts outstanding under fund based and non-fund-based credit facilities and issuance of fresh debt instruments
• Advised Rabobank on its resolution/exit strategy in relation to a number of its distressed debt investments in India
• Represented REC Ltd and Power Finance Corporation in extending a rupee facility of approximately INR 10,000 crores to Adani Power (Jharkhand) Ltd to set up a thermal power project in Jharkhand, for a dedicated supply of electricity to the Government of Bangladesh. This was the first time a company in India had set up a power plant exclusively for supplying electricity to a foreign country. Further, the project is the first power sector Special Economic Zone established in India. As the lenders’ lead counsel, we assisted in drafting of financing documents, conducting diligence, undertaking negotiations on behalf of the Lenders, coordinating with the English law and Bangladesh law counsels and providing closing related assistance to the Lenders
• Advised Oaktree in the acquisition of performing real estate loans from DHFL. Our role included various aspects of structuring the transaction, identifying a legally compliant structure for an off-shore investor to acquire the beneficial interest in recoveries from residential real estate projects
• Advised a consortium of foreign banks as lenders and Duferco S.A. as buyer on a USD 700 million export advance deal with JSW Steel Ltd through an Advance Purchase and Supply Agreement. We advised the lenders providing financing to Duferco S.A. for the trade advance payments and assisted the global counsels in structuring the transaction. This was one of the largest trade finance deals in the steel sector
• Advised a consortium of lenders comprising 26 banks and financial institutions led by ICICI Bank Ltd on multiple restructurings of Hindustan Construction Company Ltd since 2012. The restructurings have been done under various restructuring schemes of the Reserve Bank of India including but not limited to CDR, S4A and others
• Advised various investors in subscription of listed, secured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures issued by India Infrastructure Trust (a Brookfield group Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT)). This is one of the largest debentures issuance transactions by value in India. We were involved in finalising the transaction documents and negotiating the matter on behalf of our clients. The transaction was complicated in terms of regulatory environment, cash flow mechanisms and security structures