Ropes & Gray Marks Ten Years in London with Top Ranking in Bloomberg’s EMEA League Tables

Ropes & Gray has secured top rankings in Bloomberg’s EMEA Corporate High Yield Bonds (Issuer) by both volume and deal count and led Debtwire’s 2020 UK Borrower’s Legal Counsel table. 

The firm’s London finance team was able to close 2020 – the firm’s ten year anniversary in London – on a high note, despite the unprecedented market uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The team closed over 54 bond and leveraged loan transactions totaling in excess of £30 billion of aggregate principal amount.  The practice covered a broad range of financing products, including term and revolving loans, high yield bonds, convertible bonds, real estate loans, receivables financings and ESG bonds. 

Ropes & Gray was also top ranked in numerous other 2020 European legal advisor league tables released by Bloomberg and Debtwire, including top rankings in Western Europe (Bloomberg); Benelux (Issuer) (Debtwire); France (Issuer) (Debtwire) and Yankee (Issuer, Western Europe) (Debtwire). 

Notable transactions that the team advised on in 2020 included advising: 

• Virgin Media and O2 on the £5.7 billion-equivalent financing and joint venture combination of O2 and Virgin Media by Liberty Global and Telefonica (one of Debtwire’s top 10 deals of the year)
• Next Alt S.à r.l on the financing of its take private bid for Altice Europe
• Liberty Global on the financing arrangements for its proposed acquisition of Swiss telecoms group Sunrise Communications Group.