GE-CAPITAL

Ares Management Ltd., which oversees the European activities of Ares Management, L.P. (NYSE:ARES), and GE Capital International, the leading provider of specialist finance to the mid-market, have provided a €46.5 million debt facility to French firm InfoVista through the firms’ €1.75 billion joint venture, the European Senior Secured Loan Programme (ESSLP).

The ESSLP acted as Mandated Lead Arranger for the senior unitranche loan, with proceeds to be used to refinance existing indebtedness of Infovista, a French portfolio company of Thoma Bravo and a global leader of IP and RF planning, service assurance and network optimization software solutions.

This financing represents the eighth transaction from the ESSLP, which has deployed approximately €875 million since inception in 2012. The ESSLP, the first unitranche funding programme of its kind in the European debt market, provides flexible unitranche financing solutions to European mid-market borrowers.

“The European market continues to show strong demand for direct lending from middle market companies and their sponsors, and this transaction demonstrates the ESSLP’s ability to swiftly deliver cross-border financing solutions,” said Michael Dennis, Partner of Ares Management .

“This investment illustrates our ability to structure flexible financing solutions,” said Camille Frizon de Lamotte, Executive Director at GE Capital . “Through the ESSLP, InfoVista will be in a position to continue its global market consolidation strategy as illustrated by its successive acquisition of Mentum in France and Aexio in Malaysia.”

“As the company heads into its new fiscal year with a strong momentum, we are very pleased with the refinancing through the ESSLP joint venture that provides InfoVista with an extremely attractive capital structure to continue building the business through a variety of avenues,” said Robert Sayle, Partner at Thoma Bravo and non-executive Director at InfoVista .

The refinancing was led on behalf of Ares Management by Aurélien Loszycer, Axel Cordonnier and Romain Goulet and on behalf of GE Capital International by Camille Frizon de Lamotte and Arnaud Gayet.

About Ares Management

Ares Management, L.P. (NYSE:ARES) is a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $77 billion of assets under management and approximately 700 employees in more than 15 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia as of March 31, 2014. Since its inception in 1997, Ares has adhered to a disciplined investment philosophy that focuses on delivering strong risk-adjusted investment returns throughout market cycles. Ares believes each of its four distinct but complementary investment groups in Tradable Credit, Direct Lending, Private Equity and Real Estate is a market leader based on assets under management and investment performance. Ares was built upon the fundamental principle that each group benefits from being part of the greater whole.

About GE Capital International

GE Capital International is a leading, global provider of specialist finance to the mid-market, with headquarters in London and serving customers from 30 markets across EMEA and Asia Pacific.

GE Capital International is focussed on driving growth in its core commercial leasing & lending products and markets. It provides mid-market customers with a wide range of financing solutions including accounts receivable management, inventory finance, asset backed lending, cross-border financing, leveraged finance, leasing/vendor finance and fleet management solutions.

GE Capital is one of Europe’s leading providers of leveraged finance for mid-market private equity backed transactions and has a leveraged loan portfolio in excess of €5 billion across EMEA covering 160 companies in the region. For more info, visit www.gecapital.eu .

About Thoma Bravo

Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity investment firm building on a 30+ year history of providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams and growing companies. The firm seeks to create value by collaborating with company management to improve business operations and provide capital to support growth initiatives. Thoma Bravo invests with a particular focus on application and infrastructure software and technology enabled services. The firm now manages a series of private equity funds representing more than $7.5 billion of equity commitments. For more information, visit www.thomabravo.com .

About InfoVista

InfoVista is the leading provider of IP and RF planning, assurance and optimization software solutions and services that enable efficient network and IT transformations.

Our award-winning solutions empower communications service providers and IT-intensive enterprises to deliver high-performing and differentiated services, while cost-effectively planning, operating, optimizing and monetizing their networks. InfoVista’s combined expertise and technology innovations in radio and IP networks provide more than 550 customers worldwide with a new level of network intelligence, visibility and control across the entire network life cycle. Using InfoVista solutions, they deliver optimal quality of service, ensure a high-quality user experience, invest appropriately and consolidate their OSS/BSS ecosystems, while keeping total cost of ownership as low as possible. For more information, please visit www.infovista.com .

Contact:

For media enquiries, please contact:
GE Capital
Tom Steiner
External Communications and Corporate Affairs Manager
GE Capital EMEA
+44 208 1852 494
Tom.steiner@ge.com
or
Ares Management
Bill Mendel
Mendel Communications
+1 212 397 1030
bill@mendelcommunications.com

Link:

ClickThru