Bezen & Partners Wins Two Bonds & Loans Turkey Awards

Bezen & Partners was honoured two times at the Bonds & Loans Turkey Awards on 15 February 2018 in Shangri-La Bosphorus, Istanbul for outstanding work completed in 2016 and 2017. The Bonds & Loans Turkey Awards is “the only ceremony to recognise and celebrate excellence in Turkey's structured finance and capital markets”, according to organiser GFC Media Group.

Bezen & Partners’ senior partner, Yeşim Bezen, said: "Hundreds of nominations and thousands of votes were submitted for these prestigious awards, so we are delighted that two of the deals we advised on were recognised for their diversity and impact within the finance industry."

At the awards ceremony, Bezen & Partners won the following:

Infrastructure Finance Deal of the Year

Bezen & Partners has advised the sponsors’ group consisting of a Japanese and Turkish consortium on the JPY194.7 billion (US$1.456bn) financing of the İkitelli Integrated Health Campus PPP Project, together with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. The İkitelli Integrated Health Campus PPP Project JPY194.7 billion structured finance deal marked another landmark transaction for leading developers that are fast-becoming veterans of the country’s healthcare transformation programme. The hospital, of significant strategic importance for Turkey, is one of the largest hospitals to have been tendered so far, while the transaction is the first social infrastructure project that JBIC & NEXI invested into in Turkey, helping to de-risk the project and bring in foreign government support. In addition to being the first Japanese Yen-funded PPP project in Turkey, it is the first transaction in the country to have been participated by Dai-ichi and Nissay, two of Japan’s largest insurance companies, an indication of the robustness of the structure and returns; structuring the deal in Yen also allowed the borrower to maximise the transaction’s liquidity, reducing the overall cost of funding. Overall, the deal was a resounding success for the borrower and the wider healthcare sector and set the pace for others to launch into the Japanese market.

The Japanese and Turkish consortium was advised by a cross-practice B&P team led by senior partner Yeşim Bezen (Finance, Infrastructure), senior partner Aykut Bakırcı (Regulatory), senior partner Serdar Bezen (Corporate) and partner Banu Aslan (Finance, Infrastructure) together with associates Ugur Sebzeci (Corporate), Eren Soydan (Regulatory), Elif Soyel (Finance) and Yasemin Keskin (Finance).

Project Finance Deal of the Year

Bezen & Partners has advised the sponsors’ group consisting of a French and Turkish consortium on the EUR288 million project bond, issued to finance the Elazığ Integrated Health Campus PPP Project, together with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. The strategically important Elazığ Integrated Health Campus PPP Project was the first greenfield infrastructure project bond in Turkey, as well as the first project bond to carry a 20-year maturity, setting a new benchmark for the country’s capital markets. The borrower created a hybrid funding structure consisting of a loan and a bond issuance – contrary to the typical structure, which sees a loan with a bond take-out. At the same time, EBRD's and MIGA's involvement in the funding arrangement allowed the bond to achieve a credit rating two notches higher than Turkey's sovereign debt rating. Overall, the strategically important transaction helped carve out a path for other SRI borrowers and helped put Turkey on the map for green and sustainability bond investors globally.

The French and Turkish consortium was advised by a cross-practice B&P team led by senior partner Yeşim Bezen (Finance, Infrastructure), senior partner Serdar Bezen (Corporate), senior partner Aykut Bakırcı (Regulatory) and partner Banu Aslan (Finance, Infrastructure) together with associates Uğur Sebzeci (Corporate), Eren Soydan (Regulatory), Elif Soyel (Finance) and Yasemin Keskin (Finance).