Ares Management Ltd., which oversees the European activities of Ares Management, L.P. and GE Capital International have provided a €46.5 million debt facility to French firm InfoVista through the firms’ €1.75 billion joint venture, the European Senior Secured Loan Programme (ESSLP).
The ESSLP acted as Mandated Lead Arranger for the senior unitranche loan, with proceeds to be used to refinance existing indebtedness of Infovista, a French portfolio company of Thoma Bravo and a global leader of IP and RF planning, service assurance and network optimization software solutions.
This financing represents the eighth transaction from the ESSLP, which has deployed approximately €875 million since inception in 2012. The ESSLP, the first unitranche funding programme of its kind in the European debt market, provides flexible unitranche financing solutions to European mid-market borrowers.
“The European market continues to show strong demand for direct lending from middle market companies and their sponsors, and this transaction demonstrates the ESSLP’s ability to swiftly deliver cross-border financing solutions,” said Michael Dennis, Partner of Ares Management .
“This investment illustrates our ability to structure flexible financing solutions,” said Camille Frizon de Lamotte, Executive Director at GE Capital . “Through the ESSLP, InfoVista will be in a position to continue its global market consolidation strategy as illustrated by its successive acquisition of Mentum in France and Aexio in Malaysia.”
“As the company heads into its new fiscal year with a strong momentum, we are very pleased with the refinancing through the ESSLP joint venture that provides InfoVista with an extremely attractive capital structure to continue building the business through a variety of avenues,” said Robert Sayle, Partner at Thoma Bravo and non-executive Director at InfoVista .
The refinancing was led on behalf of Ares Management by Aurélien Loszycer, Axel Cordonnier and Romain Goulet and on behalf of GE Capital International by Camille Frizon de Lamotte and Arnaud Gayet.
Ares Management, L.P. ARES is a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $77 billion of assets under management and approximately 700 employees in more than 15 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia as of March 31, 2014.
GE Capital International is a leading, global provider of specialist finance to the middle-market, with headquarters in London and serving customers from 30 markets across EMEA and Asia Pacific.
Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity investment firm building on a 30+ year history of providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams and growing companies.
InfoVista is the leading provider of IP and RF planning, assurance and optimization software solutions and services that enable efficient network and IT transformations.