Acquisition Finance

Articles - Under the Business Loan Guarantee Scheme (Garantie Ondernemingsfinanciering, GO) (the "GO-scheme") the Dutch State guarantees up to 50% (recently updated to 90% as part of coronavirus measures) of the principal amount of eligible facilities made available to large and medium-sized companies in the Netherlands by participating lenders

Inside Stibbe - Luxembourg, le 17 janvier 2020 – Stibbe renforce ses pratiques spécialisées en droit des sociétés, en droit financier ainsi qu’en gestion d’actifs/fonds d’investissement par la venue de Bernard Beerens (associé, droit des sociétés), Audrey Jarreton (counsel, droit bancaire et financier), Edouard d’Anterroches (associé, fonds d’investissement), Victorien Hémery (associé, fonds d’investissement) et Dayana Bert (counsel, fonds d’investissement).

Speaking slot - Holland Financial Network will soon hold its annual conference on the developments in financial supervision, the IBOR transition and the benchmarks regulation. The 2019 edition will be held in the auditorium of the World Trade Center (Amsterdam) on 11 October.

Inside Stibbe - Stibbe reinforces its Luxembourg office with the appointment of Vanessa Schmitt (Corporate & Finance), Olivier dal Farra (Tax), and Frédéric Pilorget (Corporate & Finance) as Counsel. The new appointments have taken effect in April and allow Stibbe to further strengthen its Luxembourg tax and corporate and finance teams to continue to respond to market needs.

Short Reads - In the Benelux and wider European market, many leveraged credit agreements still include certain financial covenants (including leverage covenants, interest and cashflow covers, etc.). All of these covenants rely (directly or indirectly) on the operational performance of a company (EBITDA). As it is expected that the coronavirus outbreak will negatively affect the operations of companies in a wide variety of sectors, any consequent breaches of financial covenants are likely inevitable.

Articles - Maarten de Bruin, Rein van Helden, Rogier Raas and Robert Steeg have all contributed to the Chambers and Partners Banking & Finance 2019 Second Edition, providing the Netherlands chapter. The Luxembourg chapter was written by Gérald Origer, Jean-Marc Delcour, Steven Paridaens and Nicolas Pradel.

Speaking slot - On 16 May 2019, Rein van Helden will speak at the session "Bye-bye banking? The rise of the challenger lenders."

Articles - By now almost everyone knows that the world of interest rate benchmarks is going to change. Certain existing dominant and long-used inter-bank offered rates (IBORs) such as EURIBOR and LIBOR are likely to be restructured or may disappear all together as a result of new regulation and market forces. New alternative 'risk-free rates' (RFRs) that will replace the old IBORs have been identified or are being developed by a number of working groups for the financial markets that will be affected.