Ares Management and GE Capital announced the European Senior Secured Loan Programme (ESSLP), a €1.75 billion joint venture between affiliates of the two firms, has provided a £75M financing package to fund the acquisition of Wireless Logic, Europe's leading independent machine-to-machine (M2M) managed services provider, by CVC Growth Partners. The acquisition was funded by a £65M ESSLP Unitranche facility, which provides flexible and deliverable financing solutions of scale. In addition, a £10M working capital and acquisition facility was provided by GE Capital.

This deal marks the 12th transaction for the ESSLP since its inception in 2012 and brings total commitments funded to €1.3 billion. The €1.75 billion programme, the first of its kind in the European debt market, is structured to provide flexible unitranche financing solutions to European mid-market borrowers.

Michael Dennis, Partner in the Direct Lending Group at Ares Management, said: “We felt that unitranche was the most appropriate financing structure given the quality of Wireless Logic’s business and its requirement for a flexible and scalable debt structure. We are delighted to have been selected by CVC as its financing partner for their first transaction utilising the unitranche product.”

Chris Fowler, Executive Director at GE Capital, said: “We are delighted to support CVC Growth Partners’ first investment of the new fund. As a market leader in Europe, Wireless Logic is extremely well positioned to capitalise on the explosive growth in the M2M/IoT space. The ESSLP is well suited to an investment of this nature as it combines a day-one flexible financing solution with significant dry powder to support the continued expansion of the business.”

The ESSLP has provided debt financing to support private equity-backed businesses across Europe that span an ever-growing range of sectors. Previous financings include Montagu’s acquisition of Open GI, the recent upsized debt package for Notemachine owned by Corsair Capital, as well as financings for Hillarys owned by European Capital, Infovista owned by Thoma Bravo, Parkdean owned by Alchemy and Montagu’s acquisition of DORC.

The European Senior Secured Loan Programme (ESSLP) was formed in 2012 to invest in the senior secured debt of European middle-market companies in order to meet the growing demand for one-stop financing to replace traditional senior and junior debt financing. The Programme is a joint venture between the Ares Management European Direct Lending team, Ares Capital Europe, and GE Capital. The ESSLP was modelled after the Senior Secured Loan Program (SSLP), the North American joint venture founded in 2011 between Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: ARCC) and GE Capital, who have agreed to make available $11 billion to support North American middle market companies.

Ares Management, L.P. is a leading global alternative investment manager with approximately $86 billion of assets under management and more than 15 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia as of December 31, 2014, pro forma for the acquisition of Energy Investors Funds on January 1, 2015.

GE Capital International is a leading, global provider of specialist finance to the mid-market, with headquarters in London and serving customers from 27 markets across EMEA and Asia Pacific.