Norton Rose Fulbright advises on Global Trade Review Best Deal

A team from Norton Rose Fulbright's São Paulo, London and Amsterdam offices has been awarded for its involvement in the restructuring by Biosev, a Brazilian sugar ethanol producer and a subsidiary of Louis Dreyfus, of its US$1.3 billion debt with a large group of international and Brazilian banks. Norton Rose Fulbright represented longstanding clients Louis Dreyfus and Biosev on the deal.

The restructuring was a condition of the sale of Biosev to Raízen, a Brazilian energy joint venture between Shell and Cosan, in return for cash and an equity stake in Raízen and involved repayment of part of Biosev's debt with the sale proceeds. Biosev's debt was refinanced by a group of Biosev's existing lenders through new loans to a Louis Dreyfus entity that holds the equity stake in Raízen. Raízen completed its IPO concurrently with the debt restructuring and acquisition of Biosev.

The debt restructuring involved negotiations with 13 banks in making the new loans available in both US dollars and Brazilian real through two different syndicates and several development banks and other lenders and agents. As part of the transaction, certain Biosev assets were reorganized and transferred prior to the sale, and its shares were delisted from the São Paulo Stock Exchange. 

Global Trade Review named the multi-jurisdiction debt restructuring as one of its 2022 Best Deals. The award was based on the deal’s size, complexity and uniqueness of negotiating in a time of quarantine and virtual reality, as physical negotiation meetings were impossible.

Each year, Global Trade Review's editorial team selects the market's best deals from the previous 12 months. All winning deals are chosen from submissions sent to the publication and feature a mix of trade, commodities, supply chain and export finance transactions.

The Norton Rose Fulbright team was led by Michael McCourt with assistance from Cameron Dumans Royse in São Paulo, Jon Perry in London and with assistance from Saskia Blokland, Wouter Hertzberger and Tamara Ubink in Amsterdam.