Norton Rose Fulbright advises on Greek securitisation of portfolio of auto leases

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Olympic Commercial & Tourist Enterprises Single Member S.A. (“Olympic”) on its €186.4 million securitisation of a portfolio of auto leases.

Olympic is a joint venture between Koç Holding (one of the largest conglomerates in Turkey) and Avis Budget Group and operates the Avis Budget business in Greece. The securitisation consisted for four tranches of notes (the pari passu ranking Class A1, Class A2 and Class A3 Notes and the junior ranking Class B Notes), issued by Cronus Finance DAC (an Irish SPV).

Cronus Finance used the proceeds of the note issue to acquire a portfolio of auto leases from Olympic. The transaction also contained a replenishment feature, whereby the proceeds of payments under the auto leases can be used to acquire additional leases for a limited period. The three tranches of Class A Notes, with a total principal amount of €130 million were placed with two supranational investors (the EIF and the EBRD) and one Dutch institutional investor. The Class B Notes were purchased by Olympic. As well as being Olympic’s debut securitisation, the transaction is the largest non-bank originator securitisation to take place in Greece, and the only one since 2010 to receive investment grade ratings by two major rating agencies The lead managers on the transaction were Citi and Piraeus Bank, with Citi acting as the sole arranger.

The Norton Rose Fulbright relationship partner for the Koç group of companies is Ayşe Yüksel Mahfoud and the London based transaction team was led by partner David Shearer and consisted of senior associate Rae Parsons and associate Thomas Lysaght.