Areas of Practice

Luwam Mezue is counsel in Ropes & Gray's finance group; her practice focuses on corporate and financial transactions. Prior to joining the firm, Luwam was an associate at a leading international law firm in New York and London. 

Luwam has experience working on a broad range of high yield and investment grade SEC registered securities offerings, unregistered offerings (Rule 144A and Regulation S transactions), sovereign issuances, liability management transactions as well as cross-border banking and loan transactions including leveraged and acquisition commitments and financings. She has experience representing corporate issuers, sponsors and lenders in a variety of industries including, financial institutions, fintech, consumer products, art, sports, telecom, pharmaceuticals, airlines, oil & gas and agri-food.  

Luwam completed her JD at Harvard Law School and also studied international law for a semester at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Experience

  • Acting for Morgan Stanley and the other initial purchasers in connection with the €600 million offering of senior notes due 2025 by Intrum AB, a leading provider of credit management services and solutions, and the €250 million follow-on offering of senior notes due 2025
  • Acting for Altice France in connection with the financing aspects of its complex multi-part transaction to significantly simplify the Altice group's capital structure, including a €2.1 billion equivalent offering of senior notes and senior secured notes, a multi-tranche exchange offer for €1.4 billion and $1.6 billion  of notes issued by Altice Luxembourg and the automatic flip-up of €1.6 billion of senior notes to a new holding company of Altice France
  • Advising BidFair on the financing for its US$3.7 billion acquisition of Sotheby's, which included, among others, a $600 million high yield bond, a  $500 million term loan B and a $400 million revolving credit facility
  • Advising Goldman Sachs on the financing for the SEK13bn public takeover offer by the Af Jochnick family in respect of Oriflame Holding
  • Advising Altice USA on the structuring and financing aspects, totaling $6.75bn, of the combination of its Suddenlink (Cequel) and Optimum (Cablevision) businesses under a single credit silo. Ropes & Gray was awarded the Transatlantic Finance Team of the Year at the Legal Week Transatlantic Awards in connection with its representation of Altice USA on this transaction
  • Advising Altice Europe on the refinancing of € billions of debt within its Altice France and Altice Luxembourg credit pools
  • Advising Liberty Global on the refinancing of € billions of debt within its Virgin Media and Vodafone Ziggo credit pools including issuance of vendor financing notes

Experience prior to joining Ropes & Gray

  • Advising the initial purchasers on high yield issuance by RCS&RDS, the only Romanian corporate group issuer to date of international high yield bonds
  • Advising the Hellenic Republic on an exchange offer of existing sovereign bonds and the issuance of new sovereign Reg. S senior bond
  • Advising HSBC on the issuance of AT1, Tier 2 and TLAC registered securities
  • Advising HSBC on the issuance of first ever Social Development Goal bond 
  • Advising a Latin American corporate issuer on establishment of an export financing program with the Export-Import Bank of the United States and concurrent section 3(a)2 senior unsecured notes offering
  • Advising initial purchasers on 144A/Reg. S bond offerings by BNP
  • Advising initial purchasers on registered bonds offering by various corporate issuers including Chevron and Enterprise
  • Advising seller and buyer’s counsels on confidential M&A acquisitions
  • Advising GSK and HSBC on Exchange Act reporting and establishment of shelf programs
  • Advising various corporate issuers on initial and follow-on equity offerings

Areas of Practice

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    Ropes & Gray International LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in Delaware, United States of America and is a recognised body regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (with registered number 521000).