Lara Muazu is an associate in the Banking & Capital Markets Group in London. Lara has extensive experience in international acquisition finance and general bank lending, including trade finance and property finance. Lara has represented financial institutions and corporate borrowers in a number of jurisdictions including Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

Lara spent nine months on secondment to the loans and syndications team of BNP Paribas in London.

Representative transactions include advising:

• HSBC Bank PLC and Investec Bank PLC as mandated lead arrangers of £180 million debt financing provided to Bridgepoint Advisers Limited in respect of the acquisition of Wiggle Limited, a UK-based online cycling and sporting goods retailer which exports to 88 countries
• Mid Europa Partners in borrowing PLN690 million debt finance in connection with the acquisition a Polish convenience store chain Zabka Polska SA which operates 2,455 grocery stores in Poland and the subsequent bid for an add-on acquisition of another Polish convenience store chain in Poland
• Cukurova Holding, a leading Turkish business conglomerate, in borrowing US$1.5 billion from a syndicate of financial investors led by JP Morgan. This high-profile financing is to be used by Cukurova Holding to refinance its debt to the Alfa Group, a financial services company and formed part of a larger restructuring of the group
• Deutsche Bank as agent and security agent in connection with a US$3.5 billion syndicated senior facility agreement provided to Smurfit Kappa Group, a leading corrugated packaging manufacturers, also operating a recycling division complete with paper mills
• Deutsche Bank as security trustee in connection with a €505 million high yield senior secured notes issue to Sunrise Communications Holdings, the second-largest integrated telecommunications operator in Switzerland
• GSO Capital Partners as arranger of mezzanine facilities to ALcontrol, a leading European Environment and Food testing group, on the successful consensual restructuring of its EUR 290 million debt. The restructuring involved a debt-for-equity swap of the company's outstanding debt with lenders writing down their loans in exchange for equity instruments with an injection of new debt financing in order to give the company sufficient liquidity
• BNP Paribas as one of the mandated lead arrangers of US$45 billion senior facilities to InBev in relation to its acquisition of Anheuser-Busch
• A steering committee of lenders in respect of the proposed financial restructuring of an international steel manufacturing group headquartered in Saudi Arabia and operating across EMEA and Asia regions in relation to a multi-billion US$ portfolio of bilateral and syndicated facilities including conventional and Islamic structures

Bars and Courts
England and Wales, 2006

Education
LLM, King’s College London, 2003
LPC, BPP Law School, London, 2001
LLB (Hons), Brunel University, 2000

Languages
English

Citizenship
British