Norton Rose Fulbright advised a committee of secured creditors on the restructuring of international shipping company Vroon. The restructuring was completed on June 12. This was the first restructuring to be carried out using a parallel English scheme of arrangement and Dutch WHOA plan.
This restructuring involved certain lenders receiving participations in a new syndicated secured facility, while other lenders had their facilities amended as well as a debt-for-equity swap.
Vroon operates and manages a fleet of more than 100 vessels and is headquartered in the Netherlands. Norton Rose Fulbright has been advising the lenders on their circa $900 million of exposure for a number of years.
The team was led by partners James Stonebridge, Omar Salah and Richard Howley. A separate team acted for GLAS as agent and was led by partners Kirstin Russell and Yke Lennartz. The team was supported by more than 120 lawyers from London, Newcastle, Paris, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, New York, Canada, Singapore, Thailand and Italy, and involved teams from restructuring, shipping, corporate, disputes, pensions, antitrust and competition and tax.
“We are delighted this restructuring has now come to a successful conclusion,” James Stonebridge, partner at Norton Rose Fullbright, said. “This was a fascinating and complex deal to work on, and again highlights our market leading practice in shipping restructuring assignments.”
“It has been a privilege to work on the first-ever Dutch WHOA proceeding with a parallel English scheme of arrangement,” Omar Salah, partner at Norton Rose Fullbright, said. “This matter showcases that we are at the forefront of ground-breaking global restructurings. We are grateful to our clients for entrusting us with their most complex cross-border restructurings.”
