Ed Aldred is Co-Leader of the Global Debt Finance and European Private Equity Transactions Groups.

His practice focuses on complex cross-border public and private leveraged acquisition and infrastructure financings, leading combined loan and high-yield bond financings, and senior and junior capital structures.

Ed is a highly regarded leveraged finance lawyer, with more than 20 years’ experience advising on complex leveraged finance deals and developing innovative solutions and strategies for clients on their most strategically significant transactions. He advises private equity and infrastructure funds, corporates, family offices, and sovereign wealth funds on acquisition, infrastructure, and other event-driven finance transactions, as well as minority stake, holdco, and other structured finance transactions. In addition to working on buy-side financings, Ed also supports his clients across all aspects of sell-side finance work (including staple finance, vendor loans, certain funds, change of control, and other sell-side analysis) and with on-going portfolio and liability management work (including taps, A&Es, repricings, refinancings, and recapitalizations).

Ed has led on many “firsts” in the loan market during his career and has acted on some of the largest and most innovative transactions. His knowledge and experience covers the full spectrum of loan products, from syndicated institutional cov-lite incurrence-based TLB facilities through to unitranche and covenanted maintenance loans, including super senior, senior secured, and junior debt instruments. In addition to his familiarity with the European loan market, Ed also has extensive international experience raising U.S. dollar debt in the syndicated U.S. TLB loan market under English law and acting for many international first-time issuers in the syndicated loan market. He has worked closely with the Loan Market Association to develop and deliver their training, including their financial covenant training in particular, and spoken at several Loan Market Association hosted conferences.

Ed joined the firm as a partner in 2023. Prior to joining the firm, he was the co-head of another major international firm’s financial sponsor leveraged finance practice.

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Notable Experience

Notable Recent Experience at Cleary Gottlieb

  • Acting for Blackstone on the private credit financing for its portfolio company Draken.

  • Acting for PAI Partners on the private credit financing of its acquisition of Nuzoa.

  • Acting for PAI Partners on the private credit financing of its acquisition of Orion.

  • Acting for CNP on the private credit financing of its acquisition of Equine Care Group.

  • Acting for Bridgepoint on the private credit financing of its P2P acquisition of Eckoh plc.

  • Acting for Bridgepoint on the private credit financing of Ello Group.

  • Acting for Bridgepoint on the private credit financing of Reassured.

  • Acting for Bridgepoint on the private credit financing of Analysys Mason.

  • Acting for Sixth Street on the private credit financing of its acquisition of the master franchisee rights for Wingstop in the UK and Ireland.

  • Acting for Brookfield on the US$ TLB financing for its portfolio company HomeServe (US).

  • Acting for Brookfield on the £ TLA financing for its portfolio company HomeServe (EMEA).

  • Acting for Brookfield on financing arrangements for its portfolio company Checkatrade.

  • Acting for Jacobs Capital on the € and US$ TLB financing for its portfolio company Cognita Schools (including re-pricing, amendment and tap issuance transactions).

  • Acting for Jacobs Capital on the € TLB financing for its portfolio company Colosseum Dental Group (including re-pricing, amendment, and tap issuance transactions).

  • Acting for Central Group on its financing and other transactions with PIF to form a new holding structure and governance arrangement in respect of the Selfridges Group, following PIF’s buyout of Signa Group’s interest in Selfridges Group.

  • Acting for EGOTM, a portfolio company of Zuber Issa that was spun out from the EG Group, on its bank financings.

  • Acting for Accelor Mittal on various of its financing arrangements.

  • Acting for various sovereign wealth funds on various financing transactions.

  • Aborted bid processes for various financial sponsors (including Ardian, CVC, PAI, Brookfield, Bridgepoint, and Jacobs Capital) and corporates (including EGOTM).

  • PIK, pref, and holdco financings for various financial sponsors.

  • Sell-side certain funds processes for various financial sponsors and corporates.

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Prior to joining Cleary, Ed’s notable experience included:

  • Brookfield Asset Management in the financing of its £4 billion UK P2P of HomeServe, the largest sponsor-backed UK P2P of 2022

  • PAI Partners in multiple transactions, including in the financing of its (i) €1 billion cov-lite TLB financing of its acquisition of Areas and its (ii) €575 million first and second lien financing of its acquisition of Euro Ethnic Foods

  • CVC in multiple transactions, including in the financing of its (i) $750 million cov-lite TLB and $900 million HY bond financing for GEMS Education – the first U.S. syndicated cov-lite TLB for a Middle Eastern issuer and its (ii) €900 million French P2P of April – one of only a small number of leveraged French P2Ps

  • Carlyle in multiple transactions, including the financing of its acquisition of Calastone

  • Ardian in the infrastructure financing of its c. $600 million acquisition of Mila, the largest telecoms infrastructure service provider in Iceland

  • Jacobs in multiple transactions, including (i) the c. €4.4 billion HY/bridge/cov-lite TLB financing of its bid for Refresco and (ii) its £650 million cov-lite TLB and second-lien financing for the acquisition of Cognita Schools

  • Central Group in the financing of its $5.4 billion acquisition of the Selfridges Group (including the iconic London department store)

  • Digital Bridge/Vantage Data Centres in their £380 million leveraged infrastructure financing for the acquisition of New Generation Data Centres, a leading UK data centers business

  • Digital Bridge in a structured infrastructure financing for the acquisition of Syn/Nova’s telecoms tower portfolio

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Publications