DLA Piper has acted for a NEQSOL Holding group company, a mobile network operator in Ukraine, as borrower from VFU Funding PLC on VFU Funding PLC’s debut USD500 million 6.20% loan participation notes (the “Notes”). The Notes were placed for the period of five years with a call option from year two. The notes are listed on Euronext Dublin’s Global Exchange Market (GEM).

This is an important transaction for the Ukrainian market as the 6.20% per annum interest rate of the Notes marks the lowest U.S. dollar coupon achieved by a corporate issuer from Ukraine.

J.P. Morgan acted as sole global coordinator, joint lead manager and joint bookrunner, Raiffeisen Bank International acted as joint lead manager and joint bookrunner, and Dragon Capital and ICBC Standard Bank acted as joint lead managers of the offering.

The DLA Piper Kyiv-based Finance & Projects team was led by partner Oleksandr Kurdydyk, legal director Dmytro Pshenychniuk and associate Viktoriia Luganska. London-based partners Mark Dwyer and Tony Lopez, senior associate Mei Mei Wong and associates Elvis Dangol and Elizabeth Baek from the capital markets team also advised on the transaction. Partner Ben Brown and associate Michael Graham provided tax advice.

Other Ukraine-based team members included: partner Illya Sverdlov, senior associate Dmytro Rylovnikov and junior associate Andrii Falendysh, who advised on the tax aspects of the transaction; legal director Natalia Kirichenko, associates Olena Stanishevska and Ivan Shatov, and junior associate Kateryna Tyshchenko who advised on telecommunication, data privacy and intellectual property matters; and partner Galyna Zagorodniuk who advised on antitrust law aspects.