"When what we need requires heavy duty work we use KGDI," says one client, commenting on not just the legal capability but also the manpower of the firm.
It has been a steady year overall for KGDI and, as its rankings suggest, the firm does have particular strengths in both banking and corporate work....
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"When what we need requires heavy duty work we use KGDI," says one client, commenting on not just the legal capability but also the manpower of the firm.
It has been a steady year overall for KGDI and, as its rankings suggest, the firm does have particular strengths in both banking and corporate work. A team led by partners Ioanna Antonopoulou and Despina Doxaki advised on an interesting global banking deal this year involving a large number of banks from the Oceania region. The firm worked for a company that was acting as guarantor, Greenfarm Chemicals, after the banks granted a facility to subsidiaries of the Nufarm Group companies. The deal is noteworthy for its size, coming to completion for €665 million, and because these funds were granted under new legislation for SA companies.
In the capital markets, the firm also acted on the large Piraeus rights issue, with leading lawyer Christina Papanikolopoulou and partner Michael Tzartzouras advising the bank on all aspects of the deal. The deal is noteworthy for its sheer size, being worth around €807 million, and it closed in February 2011.
Another standout mandate saw the firm's M&A team act on a deal that straddled over 40 jurisdictions. KGDI acted as local counsel for Boston Scientific, a global firm that deals in interventional medical equipment, on the sale of their international neurovascular business to a leading medical technology company Stryker. The deal finally came to a value of $1.5 billion globally, and completed at the very beginning of 2011.
PPPs (public-private partnership) are a relatively rare thing in Greece and with the economic situation it has fallen behind a little. However, a few of the deals that were remaining did fall to KGDI. One deal in particular that is worth mentioning involved Doxaki and Antonopoulou being instructed by Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank to advise on a €47 million financing to the Piraeus Police Department under a PPP structure. The work is unique in that it is the only deal of this type wholly financed by Greek banks and is yet to be completed.
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