Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On September 1, 2017, Beyond Leap Limited — Hong Kong-incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary of Legends Holdings Corporation — entered into a Sale and Purchase Agreement with Precision Capital S.A. — a Luxembourg-based financial company representing the interests of the members of a prominent Qatari family — for the purchase of its 89.93645% issued share capital in Banque Internationale à Luxembourg S.A. (BIL) — a Luxembourg-incorporated and -based bank, the largest privately-owned one in Luxembourg minority-owned by the Luxembourg State (9.99292% stake) — for a consideration of €1,483,951,348 EUR (RMB 11,652,727,960). On September 1, 2017, Beyond Leap Limited — Hong Kong-incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary of Legends Holdings Corporation — entered into a Sale and Purchase Agreement with Precision Capital S.A. — a Luxembourg-based financial company representing the interests of the members of a prominent Qatari family — for the purchase of its 89.93645% issued share capital in Banque Internationale à Luxembourg S.A. (BIL) — a Luxembourg-incorporated and -based bank, the largest privately-owned one in Luxembourg minority-owned by the Luxembourg State (9.99292% stake) — for a consideration of €1,483,951,348 EUR (RMB 11,652,727,960). The acquisition was completed on July 2, 2018, for a cash consideration of €1,534,441,348 EUR (RMB 11,740,777,974), being the aggregate of the base purchase price including adjustments relating to BIL's profile.. The Luxembourg State retained its stake, and Legend Holdings maintained the existing governance structure and management team of BIL and planned to use the bank to expand into the financial services sector. In or around mid-March 2019, a syndicate of at 11 banks — including the Bank of China (BOC) — issued a $399 million USD-equivalent syndicated dual-currency loan to Right Lane Limited — a Hong Kong-incorporated limited liability company and investment holding company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Legend Holdings Corporation, a Chinese investment holding company listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and controlling shareholder of the Lenovo Group with Chinese Academy of Sciences Holdings Co, Ltd as a majority shareholder (29.04% stake) — to refinance Legend Holdings' acquisition of 89.936% issued share capital in Banque Internationale à Luxembourg S.A. This term loan carried a maturity period of three years with a bullet repayment profile and was available for draw down in U.S. dollars and euro, with an interest rate of LIBOR plus a margin of 130 basis points (bps) for USD drawings and EURIBOR plus a margin of 125 bps for EUR drawings. The proceeds were to be used for general corporate purposes and for refinancing its acquisition of BIL. In addition to BOC, the following lenders contributed to the loan syndicate: Crédit Agricole Group, Natixis, and Standard Chartered Bank PLC. All four lenders served as mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners. General syndication was launched on February 13, 2019 as a $300 million USD-equivalent, with the deadline for commitments in mid-March 2019, before it was (presumably) up-sized after seven additional lenders joined the lending syndicate.
Staff comments
1. The Chinese project title is 联想收购卢森堡国际银行. 2. The individual contributions of the 11 lenders to this $399 million USD-equivalent syndicated loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the contribution of BOC by assuming that each lender contributed an equal amount ($36,272,727.2727 USD) to the loan syndicate. 3. While this loan was available for draw down in U.S. dollars or euros, it was denominated in dollars, so AidData has coded accordingly; a 6-month LIBOR was assumed. The average 6-month LIBOR for March 2019 (when syndication was to be finished, AidData's proxy for final issuance) was 2.67484%. Therefore, the interest rate has been coded as 2.67484% + 1.30% = 3.97484%.