Raphaël Richard heads the Banking and Capital Markets Practice in Paris. He has extensive expertise in leveraged acquisition finance, structured finance, corporate finance, syndicated lending and real estate financing.

In addition, Raphaël has a wealth of experience in handling financial restructurings, advising creditors and debtors on complex debt restructuring matters.

Raphaël represents a range of banks and other financial institutions in domestic and cross-border transactions, acting for institutional giants such as BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole CIB, Natixis, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

Raphaël also represents corporate borrowers and investment funds in a wide range of financing transactions. Such clients include Apax, Carlyle, Eurazeo and Wendel Investissement.

Raphaël is highly ranked by the leading legal benchmarking directories. In the 2012 edition of Chambers Global, he is praised for his “top-notch legal advice“ with “effective client care by use of a punchy, efficient style”. He is also described as "an excellent negotiator" by Chambers Europe 2011.

Recent representative transactions include:

• Advising the bookrunners, arrangers and lenders in relation to the financing of the public offer over Groupe Outremer Telecom, a French listed company;
• Assisting PagesJaunes Groupe SA in connection with the issuance of €350 million senior secured notes due 2018 by PagesJaunes Finance & Co S.C.A.;
• Advising a syndicate of banks in connection with a €1,5 billion multicurrency revolving credit facility granted to Accor;
• Advising Catalyst Capital in connection with its acquisition of the property Front Parc in Clichy;
• Advising ING Reim as asset manager of a SPV set up between CDC, Predica and Scor for the financing of the acquisition of an office building in Bezons;
• Advising the lenders in relation to the refinancing of the European division of a major sportswear group;
• Advising the banks in connection with the restructuring of a French press group's loan facilities;
• Advising the lender, arranger and documentation agent in connection with the granting of a €900 million syndicated term loan facility and a € 600 million bridge to bonds loan to Accor Services in the context of the spin off of the “Services” business contributed to Edenred; and
• Advising the mandated lead arrangers with respect to the senior secured financing for the acquisition by a vehicle controlled by PAI partners of Cerba, French medical biology laboratories. This transaction was the first ever “double LuxCo” structure including mezzanine financing.

Bars and Courts
Avocat, Paris Bar

Education
DESS, Business Law (Droit des Affaires), University of Paris XII, 1996
Diploma, Economic and Financial Section, Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, Paris, 1994
Master in Business Law, University of Lyon III, 1992

Languages
English
French

Citizenship
France