GVB
Amendment of existing financing facilities
- In October 2018, Avaxa was engaged by GVB, the public transport provider in Amsterdam, to assist in its financing raise to enable investments in its fleet focused on expansion, modernization and sustainability (Zero Emission Buses) for a total consideration of EUR 550mln;
- Throughout the process we were in continuous dialogue with the Supervisory Board, sole shareholder the Municipality of Amsterdam and Vervoerregio Amsterdam, the latter both in its capacity of debt service guarantee provider and concession provider, to keep them fully aligned to the process;
- Complex stakeholder management resulting from the (semi-) public position of GVB required extensive reporting to all relevant stakeholders;
- The competitive financing raise process with 9 lenders resulted in a three times oversubscribed credit approved commitment;
- In Q4 2019 GVB signed its Long-Term Financing commitment, including Forward Starting loans, with (semi-) public lenders BNG and NWB against very competitive terms, resulting in a first drawdown of the Revolving Credit Facility in October 2019 with a negative interest rate; and
- This marked the first time GVB accessed and tapped the external financing markets, as thus far GVB had been financed by its sole shareholder, the Municipality of Amsterdam.
