Crédit Agricole S.A. in €4.5 Billion Extendible Short-Term Notes Offering

Cleary Gottlieb represented Crédit Agricole S.A., acting through its London branch, in a €4.5 billion Rule 144A offering of extendible short-term notes. The joint lead managers on the offering were Calyon Securities (USA), Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Goldman, Sachs & Co. The transaction closed on March 22.

The transaction was the second such transaction for Crédit Agricole outside of their Euro Medium-Term Notes Program. Extendible short-term notes are products designed to be sold to U.S. money-market funds, which cannot invest in notes with maturities longer than 397 days. The notes are extendible at the option of their holders for successive periods of 397 days, giving the funds the ability to lock in investment returns for a period that is longer than their maximum permitted holding period.