Alex Robb is a market leading finance partner in Ropes & Gray’s London office. He has broad and impressive experience in complex big-ticket and mid-market debt financing transactions.

He advises leading private equity sponsors, investment banks, private credit funds and publicly listed companies and corporates where they seek to execute leveraged and infrastructure financings in the syndicated or private credit loan markets.

Alex is widely recognised by peers and publications, including as a leading lawyer in Chambers and Partners (Banking & Finance: Big-Ticket, UK Guide 2024), with clients noting that “Alex Robb is a really good and technically brilliant partner”, ”they appreciate that Alex sees a lot of flow in the market and provides us with broader knowledge and market context and how we are positioned versus others”, “Alex is a tough negotiator and has the skill of summarising for non-legal specialists, always coming with suggestions rather than problems” and that “Alex provides quick turnaround, is friendly and good to work with, and advises well on what the client and the business need.”

Alex has also been recognised in The Legal 500 as a ‘Next Generation Partner’ in Finance: Acquisition Finance (2024), with a client quoted as saying, “Alex Robb – great partner to work with, very driven, super helpful at all times, positive minded and outstanding legal knowledge.” He has also been recognised by IFLR1000 (2019-2024) as “Highly Regarded”.

He was recognised for his role as lead partner on the deal awarded ‘Finance Team of the Year’ at The Lawyer 2021 Awards in recognition of the outstanding £31.4 billion Virgin Media and O2 merger financing and listed in Legal Week’s ‘40 Under 40: Rising Star in Private Equity’ in 2019.

Experience

Private Equity Sponsors

Alex’s representative experience includes advising:

  • TPG on
    • on the financing arrangements for its Italian portfolio company, Musixmatch
    • a club unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing to support its acquisition of Outcomes First Group
  • Accel-KKR in connection with financing arrangements to support a public to private bolt on acquisition of Glantus Holdings plc by its portfolio company Basware
  • American Industrial Partners in connection with the syndicated infrastructure financing arrangements supporting its acquisition of Aquaship and Intership
  • Avista Capital Partners on:
    • a unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing to support its acquisition of Terrats Medical
    • a unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing for its joint acquisition with VHC Investco of Vision Healthcare
  • TSG Consumer Partners on:
    • a dividend recap financing (and subsequent CLBILS and receivables financing) for Revolution Beauty
    • a unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing for its acquisition of Cadogan Tate
  • EQT BPEA on the financing arrangements in connection with its $1 billion+ acquisition of Lumenis, and a dividend recapitalization transaction in connection with the sale of its surgical business
  • Bridgepoint on: 
    • a unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing in connection with its acquisition of SK Aerosafety Group
    • a unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing in connection with its acquisition of Kerv
    • unitranche and super senior revolving credit facility financing in connection with its acquisition of a 75% stake in Fera Science
    • unitranche and revolving credit facility financing arrangements in connection with its acquisition of Achilles
    • a dividend recap financing together with acquisition and working capital facilities for its portfolio company MVF Global
    • a financing package in connection with its acquisition of IDHL
    • financing arrangements for its recapitalisation of Matrix
    • financing arrangements in connection with its acquisition of Monica Vinader
  • Intermediate Capital Group on:
    • the cov-lite unitranche and super senior RCF financing arrangements for its investment in Law Business Research
    • the unitranche financing arrangements for its acquisition of Travel Chapter and subsequent bolt-on acquisition of The Original Cottage Company
    • a holdco PIK financing as part of its $5.3 billion consortium buyout of Visma, Europe's largest ever software buyout
    • a holdco PIK loan in connection with its £1.3 billion joint investment into IRIS, a leading provider of business-critical software and services and subsequently, on its sale and reinvestment – alongside Hg and Leonard Green – valuing IRIS at an Enterprise Value of around £3.15 billion
    • the secured financing in connection with its investment in Blackrock Programme Management (Blackrock PM), a UK-headquartered professional services firm
  • 3i Group plc in connection with the bank club financing used to finance its acquisition of MPM, an international leader in branded, premium, natural pet food
  • Livingbridge on recurring revenue financing arrangements for RealVNC, a leading vendor of remote access and remote support software 
  • GHO Capital Partners on:
    • its term loan B financing arrangements for Envision Pharma Group including a fungible tap to support the bolt on acquisition of Two Labs
    • a unitranche financing package for its acquisition of X-Chem
    • a unitranche financing package for its acquisition of Clearview Healthcare Partners
    • a unitranche financing package for its acquisition of Velocity Clinical Research, and subsequent credit fund club upsize to support the acquisition of Meridian Clinical Research
    • numerous term loan B tap financings to support acquisitions by its portfolio company, Validant
  • Arsenal Capital on a dividend recapitalisation financing in connection with a public to private acquisition by its portfolio company Value Demonstration Holdings LLC of Cello Health plc
  • Bain Capital on the financing package for its purchase of a controlling stake in MKM
  • Welsh Carson in connection with a £175 million unitranche facility and £20 million revolving credit facility in connection with a bid
  • Hellman & Friedman in connection with the refinancing and dividend recapitalization of a portfolio company by way of unitranche facility

Borrower

Alex’s representative experience includes advising:

  • Adaptimmune Therapeutics, a company redefining the treatment of solid tumor cancers with cell therapy, on a US$125 million five-year, term loan facility
  • AtlasEdge, a leading pan-European Edge data centre provider and JV between Liberty Global and Digital Bridge, on a sustainability-linked €725 million hybrid leveraged/infrastructure financing package. Shortlisted for IFLR 2023 Loan Deal of the Year (lead partner on the financing)
  • Virgin Media and O2 on the £5.7 billion-equivalent, term loan B, term loan A and bond financing in connection with the joint venture combination of O2 and Virgin Media by Liberty Global and Telefonica. This deal resulted in the Finance Team of the Year award at The Lawyer 2021 Awards (lead partner on the financing)
  • Liberty Global plc in connection with:
    • the holdco financing arrangements to support its $1 billion tender offer for the outstanding shares in Telenet Group Holding
    • its dual tranche USD and EUR term loan B for an equivalent total of $3.7 billion, in connection with the financing for UPC Holding’s $7.7 billion public to private acquisition of Sunrise Communications Group
    • its €3.95 billion equivalent dual currency loan financing package in relation to its public takeover of Dutch listed cable company Ziggo N.V.
    • the financing arrangements for its £3.5 billion public takeover of Cable & Wireless Communications plc.
    • £420 million of first and second lien facilities for the acquisition of All3Media as part of a joint venture with Discovery Communications, Inc.
    • numerous term loan B refinancings in an aggregate equivalent amount in excess of £30 billion for the Telenet, UPC, Unitymedia, Virgin Media and Ziggo groups
    • an offer to exchange €1.475 billion of UPC loans for loans to a combined Dutch telecoms credit pool consisting of the UPC Nederland and Ziggo businesses
    • the financing aspects of its $21 billion disposal to Vodafone of its German business and certain eastern European businesses
  • Altice VII S.à r.L. on:
    • a $1.034 billion covenant lite term loan, a €250 million bond issuance and €125 million in other bank financing in relation to the acquisition of Groupe Outremer Telecom S.A.
    • a $425 million holdco PIK facility in connection with its acquisition of Tricom S.A. and Global Interlink Ltd
  • Virgin Media Ireland on its extraction from Virgin Media O2 and €900 million term loan B and a €100 million RCF financing arrangements
  • Virgin Media O2 on a £1.474 billion term loan A facility placed with a pool of 29 leading international banks
  • All3Media on a €405 million first lien syndicated term loan B and £75 million privately placed second lien refinancing
  • Virgin Media on a £300 million offering of Receivables Financing Notes due 2023
  • Brighthouse Group plc in connection with a super senior revolving credit facility to support its senior secured notes offering
  • L.E.K. Consulting in connection with its investment grade financing arrangements

Lender

Alex’s representative experience includes advising:

  • Piraeus Bank SA, a Greek multinational financial services institution on a bilateral term loan A for Intrum AB
  • BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and the other lead arrangers on a term loan A financing to support the bolt on acquisition of Atos Italia by Apax portfolio company Lutech
  • Goldman Sachs and Barclays plc on a senior secured notes bond and super senior RCF refinancing worth £555 million equivalent for the Boparan Group
  • Goldman Sachs in connection with a funded €200 million senior bridge facility agreement and acting for Nordea Bank in connection with a NOK500 million bilateral facility, in each case, for Nordic Capital’s portfolio company, Lindorff
  • Bridgepoint Credit as lender on the holdco refinancing of CPPIB’s £675 million minority stake in BGL Group, the owner of comparethemarket.com
  • MV Credit on second lien financings to support dividend recaps for Sunrise Medical and The Binding Site, and to support Itiviti’s refinancing and the acquisition of Ullink, each being Nordic Capital portfolio companies
  • Alcentra on a second lien facility to fund the acquisition of Audiotonix by Ardian
  • Partners Group as second lien lender on Nordic Capital’s successful €1.1 billion bid for Alloheim
  • Monarch Capital on a super senior term loan B liquidity financing for the Boparan Group
  • Bain Capital Credit and Intermediate Capital Group as lenders on the financing in connection with Ardian’s acquisition of Study Group

Areas of Practice

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