Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised National Bank of Greece (“NBG”) on a >10 year non-recourse acquisition financing to a consortium comprising Snam, Enagás and Fluxys to fund approximately 65% of the consideration for its acquisition, through Senfluga Energy Infrastructure Holdings (“Senfluga”), of a 66% stake in the Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator S.A. (“DESFA”) for €535m. Senfluga completed the acquisition of its shares in DESFA on 20 December 2018.
The cross-border WFW team advising NBG was led by Athens Finance Partners Marisetta Marcopoulou and Virginia Murray, supported by London Energy & Infrastructure Partners Daisy East and Colin Graham. They were assisted by Michael Folsom and Emmanuel Ninos in London and Valina Giouzelaki, Matina Kanellopoulou, Konstantina Siozou, Eirini Portokalaki and Nick Tsirogiannis in Athens.
Marisetta commented: “This was an extremely demanding transaction completed in a remarkably short time frame, which we were able to complete thanks both to the close co-ordination between our Greek and English law teams in Athens and London, and an excellent relationship with NBG’s expert inhouse team”.
