Gowling WLG Paris advises the Altitude Infrastructure group in connection with the restructuring and financing of six very-high-speed networks for €110 million

Holder of several public service concessions for the financing, design, implementation and operation of very-high-speed FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) and public initiative networks, Altitude Infrastructure recently set up a holding company, ALTO, dedicated to the financing of these networks.

This transaction, currently targeting six very-high-speed networks serving more than 600,000 homes, allowed the incorporation of Caisse des dépôts et consignations in order to hold 33% of shares of ALTO with Altitude Infrastructure (67%). It also enabled ALTO to raise a long-term loan of €77 million from Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking, from Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management and from Unifergie in order to diversify and optimize the financing of these six networks.

To sum up, this transaction represented an equity financing and an external debt amounting to €110 million.

The Gowling WLG Paris Public Law team, which included Emmanuel Paillard (partner) and Julie Vuagnoux (director), advised Altitude Infrastructure with CMS Bureau Francis Lefevre.

This deal increasingly strengthens the experience of the Gowling WLG Paris teams in the very-high-speed & public initiative networks sector for which the French government plans to invest €20 billion over 10 years (2013 - 2022).