Successful restart

The international law firm Noerr advised A.T.U, the market leader in German motor vehicle service, on the successful financial restructuring in the course of which the A.T.U. Group reduced its debt by over 600 million Euro. A change of shareholder also took place. The new majority owner is the US finance investor Centerbridge Partners, L.P.

At the beginning of December last year, the company, the shareholders and over 80% of the senior noteholders – including Centerbridge – after months of negotiation, agreed on a reduction of the A.T.U debt by over 600 million Euro and the injection of approx. 100 million Euro in fresh capital. A.T.U also obtained from HayFin Capital Management a senior secured credit line of 75 million Euro maturing in 2018. The A.T.U management relied in the restructuring on a Noerr team led by Prof. Dr. Christian Pleister, Co-Head of Noerr’s Corporate Department. The team also advised the A.T.U Group on the new debt financing by HayFin.

The restructuring was made possible by the senior noteholders. Firstly, their existing rights are converted into preference shares and approx. 5 % of the ordinary shares in the new A.T.U group parent. In addition, they participate in the new capital which, after the restructuring, corresponds to approx. 92 % of the A.T.U ordinary shares. Funds managed by Centerbridge Partners, Goldman Sachs and Babson Capital had given binding commitments in advance to take up this investment possibly up to its full amount. With the restructuring, the company’s interest charges are reduced by more than 90 %.  The funds managed by Centerbridge Partners are the new majority shareholders in A.T.U. The previous majority shareholder KKR continues to hold 3%.

“Supporting the management in this highly complex and creative refinancing transaction and new debt financing was an extremely challenging task. After intensive negotiations, the common interests of all parties in a sustainable and long-term solution ensured success”, commented Christian Pleister. “Our team again demonstrated its expertise in a highly complex comprehensive restructuring over several jurisdictions”.

Advisor A.T.U: Noerr LLP

Prof. Dr. Christian Pleister (leading, corporate, Frankfurt/Berlin), Dr. Florian Becker (corporate), Dr. Christoph Schotte (restructuring, both Munich), Sebastian Bock (financing), Dr. Nikolai Warneke (financing, both Frankfurt), Tim Jakobs (restructuring), Benedikt Neumaier (restructuring, both Munich), Dr. Bettina Röder (financing, Frankfurt), Silvia Sparfeld (corporate)