Cleary Gottlieb acted as U.S. and international counsel to the underwriters in Enel’s offering of $4.5 billion in bonds, one of the largest-ever offerings of dollar-denominated debt securities by an Italian corporate issuer. The three tranches of bonds, with maturities of five, ten and thirty years, were issued by Enel Finance International, a wholly-owned finance subsidiary of Enel S.p.A., and guaranteed by the parent company, and were sold primarily to institutional investors in the United States in accordance with Rule 144A, with sales outside the U.S. being made pursuant to Regulation S. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. acted as global coordinators and joint bookrunners for the transaction, which priced on October 1 and closed on October 7. Banc of America Securities LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. also acted as joint bookrunners.
The Enel Group is the leading electricity operator in both Italy and Spain and one of the leading global operators in the fields of generation, transportation, distribution and sales of electricity. The Group also imports, distributes and sells natural gas. The Yankee Bond transaction, which was notable for its particularly accelerated timetable as well as its size, follows on Enel’s successful €8 billion rights offering in July, a deal in which Cleary Gottlieb acted for Enel.