Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised a consortium of banks comprising Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, ING Bank, a branch of ING-DiBa AG, KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH (“KfW IPEX-Bank”) and UniCredit Bank AG on a €150m capex facility granted to leasing company Railpool GmbH (“Railpool”). KfW IPEX-Bank acted as both facility and security agent.
Railpool will use the funds to procure, among other things, 50 new universal locomotives manufactured by Alstom Traxx. Development work on the locomotives, which can be used for both freight and passenger transport, will be conducted at Alstom’s site in Mannheim, with final assembly to take place at their Kassel plant.
Founded in Munich in 2008, Railpool is one of the leading European leasing companies for rail vehicles. It operates in 18 European countries and has a fleet of c. 500 locomotives and 150 passenger vehicles.
The WFW Germany Assets & Structured Finance team that advised the consortium was led by Frankfurt Partner Frederik Lorenzen, supported by Hamburg Managing Associate Jan Mommsen and Frankfurt Senior Associates Alexander Piepenbrock and Alejandra Hagedorn.
Frederik commented: “We are pleased to have once again been able to advise this consortium of prominent European banks on an important loan granted to Railpool, highlighting the trust all parties have in WFW Germany to help close transactions smoothly and on schedule”.
