Michael Foundethakis

Practice Areas

Michael Foundethakis has broad experience acting for both lenders and borrowers in a wide range of international finance transactions. He is primarily involved in cross-border project finance, structured trade finance (including ECA-backed export finance), acquisition finance, syndicated lending, financial restructuring and the trading of distressed loans in the secondary debt market. Much of this work entails dealing with export credit agencies, development financial institutions and other governmental and multi-lateral institutions. His main focus is on emerging markets, particularly Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS and Africa.

Career

Michael Foundethakis is an English and French qualified partner based in the Paris office of Baker McKenzie. Michael acted as the Global Chair of Baker McKenzie's Banking & Finance Practice between May 2017 and July 2020. Michael currently heads Banking & Finance in Paris and is also Global Head of Project and Trade & Export Finance for the firm and chairs Baker McKenzie's Africa Steering Committee.

Michael joined Baker McKenzie in 1999, became a partner in 2003 and has worked in both the London and Munich offices of the firm prior to taking the helm of the Banking & Finance practice of the Baker McKenzie Paris office in October 2010.

Michael is highly recommended as a leading banking and finance lawyer by Chambers Global, Legal 500, JUVE and IFLR. Additionally, he was the exclusive winner of the ILO Client Choice Award 2011 in Banking for Germany and again winner of the same award in 2017 in Banking for France. A team led by Michael Foundethakis was awarded Banking, Finance & Restructuring Team of the Year at The African Legal Awards 2015.

Professional Memberships

Michael Foundethakis has been admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England & Wales since 1995; became a member of the Munich Bar from 2002 to 2017; has been a member of the Paris Bar since 2011 and qualified as an Avocat à la Cour in 2019; and was admitted as a solicitor in Ireland in 2019.

Work Highlights

• Advised global financial services group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) on the successful completion of a USD 500 million accordion facility to increase the size of a USD 234 million Samurai loan for the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). This increased facility will support Afreximbank to expand and diversify African trade, increase trade finance, and improve the facilitation of intra-African trade and value-added exports. (ECA, DFI and IFI Deal of the Year - Bonds, Loans & ESG Capital Markets Africa Awards 2024)

• Acting for African Export-Import Bank in relation to a USD 500,000,000 facility agreement provided to the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Tunisia to finance the import and export of essential commodities and manufactured goods from and to certain other African countries.

• Acting for African Export-Import Bank in relation to the construction of the first in a series of African Centres of Medical Excellence ("ACME"), including one in Abuja, Nigeria. We have acted in various capacities to agree the hospital management agreement with King's College London and the host government agreement with the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thereafter come the equity contributions and debt financing.

• Advised MUFG Bank, Ltd. in relation to a UKEF-covered EUR 150 million bridge facility agreement made amongst, inter alias, Fonds D'Entretien Routier Autonome (FERA) of Senegal as borrower and MUFG Bank, Ltd. as original lender, bookrunner and initial mandated legal arranger and agent; which facility agreement was guaranteed by the Ministry of Finance of Senegal.

• Acting for the lenders led by SMBC Bank International plc, with MUFG Bank, Ltd. as agent, on a USD 400 million JICA supported covered facilities agreement to African Export-Import Bank. This was the first ever syndicated loan of its kind for JICA in Africa. Its purpose being: (i) to support development of vaccine, medical and health infrastructure including equipment; (ii) to strengthen Africa’s vaccine and health/medical equipment logistics capacity; and (iii) to support Afreximbank’s pandemic financing programme ("PATIMFA") in highly impacted sectors and to assist a post Covid-19 recovery in the Africa region.

• Acting for a syndicate of 24 banks led by Standard Chartered Bank in relation to a dual-currency, dual-tranche up to USD 1.2 billion term loan facility agreement to African Export-Import Bank.

• Acting for a syndicate of 23 banks led by Bank of America Europe DAC and Standard Chartered Bank as Sustainability Coordinators and Commerzbank as Facility Agent in relation to a USD 600 million sustainability-linked term loan facility agreement for Investec Bank Limited of South Africa, the first ever sustainability-linked syndicated loan signed by Investec Bank Limited.

• Acting for African Export-Import Bank in relation to a USD 700 million facility agreement provided to the Central Bank of Tunisia to support intra-African trade finance.

• Acting for BNP Paribas Fortis in relation to two CESCE covered facility agreements amounting to circa. EUR 213,882,540 provided OCP SA in Morocco to support in import of equipment from Spain.

• Acting for Crédit Agricole, Standard Chartered Bank, MUFG Bank Limited and UKEF (the ECA of the United Kingdom) with respect to three facilities amounting to an aggregate amount of circa USD 655 million financing to the Ministry of Finance of Oman in order to finance the export of equipment required to construct three hospitals in Oman (awarded as a "Deal of the Year” in Global Trade Review's Awards 2020).

• Acting for BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Industriel et Commercial and ING in relation to a circa. USD 470 million SACE-covered loan facility agreement to The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company to support the import of equipment from General Electric and Orascom to complete the conversion two power stations (Assuit and West Damietta) guaranteed by the Ministry of Finance of Egypt (awarded "Deal of the Year – EMEA Export Finance: Power” in Euromoney's Trade Finance Awards 2017).

• Acting for a syndicate of 34 lenders led by Commerzbank AG in relation to a dual-currency, dual-tranche EUR 406.5 million and USD 458 million term loan facility agreement to African Export-Import Bank (For their role as legal counsel on this matter, Baker McKenzie were awarded "Banking, Finance & Restructuring Team of the Year" at The African Legal Awards 2015).

• Acting as lead counsel to the creditors' Steering Committee (including commercial lenders, trade finance banks, Export Credit Agencies and bondholders) of BTA Bank in Kazakhstan in relation to the USD 16.7 billion restructuring of its financial indebtedness – the largest ever financial restructuring in the CIS (Euromoney 2010, "Central and Eastern European Deal of the Year").

Languages Spoken

English

French

German

Greek

Industry Sector Expertise

Acquisition Finance

Banking & Finance

Energy, Mining & Infrastructure

Financial Institutions

Loans & Credit Facilities

Private Equity

Project Finance

Restructuring & Insolvency

Sovereigns

Sustainability and ESG

Sustainability for Financial Institutions and Sustainable Finance

Trade & Export Finance