Bombardier Completes Refinancing of Letter of Credit Facilities

On December 17, 2008 Bombardier completed a strategic refinancing of its existing €4.3 billion letter of credit facility by entering into a new €3.75 billion (approximately US$5.4 billion) syndicated, partially secured, letter of credit facility solely for use by its Bombardier Transportation group, maturing in 2013. Simultaneously, Bombardier's existing letter of credit facility was amended for use by Bombardier's Aerospace operations and reduced to US$840 million, maturing as previously at the end of 2011.

The bank syndicate for the Bombardier Transportation facility was led by ABN Amro Bank N.V., BNP Paribas, Calyon, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank AG, Dresdner Bank AG and J.P. Morgan PLC as mandated lead arrangers. The bank syndicate for the amended Aerospace facility was led by a core relationship group of Bombardier's North American banks.

The transactions were led in-house by Daniel Desjardins, senior vice president and general counsel and Chantal Robitaille, senior director, legal services. Ogilvy Renault LLP (Montréal and London) acted as counsel to Bombardier, with a team led by Paul Raymond and including Peter Wiazowski, Hoa Phong Le, Nicola Ezra and Alain Ricard (banking) and Jules Charette (tax). Bombardier was also advised locally in Luxembourg by Philippe Dupont and Béatrice Clement of Arendt & Medernach; in the United States by Chris Hilbert and Alexi Poretz of Sidley Austin LLP; in the Netherlands and Spain by Baker & McKenzie (Fedor L. Tanke and Ashling Lobato in Amsterdam and Rossanna D'Onza in Madrid); in Iceland by Vala Valtysdottir of Deloitte and in Northern Ireland by Ken Rutherford of C&H Jefferson.

The mandated lead arrangers and banks were represented by Allen & Overy LLP with a team led by Peter Schulz and Michael Castle and including Laila de Melo, Dominic McGreal, Niketa Devesher, Lifen Tang and Tom Wallis (London); Elizabeth Leckie and Livia Talenti (New York); Femke Bierman and Wieger ten Hove (Amsterdam); Pierre Schleimer, Benedicte Kurth and Jean-Baptiste Santelli (Luxembourg) and Ignacio Ruiz-Camara and Raquel Olalla (Madrid). The mandated lead arrangers and banks were represented on Icelandic matters by Logos (Ragnheiður Ólafsdóttir); on Swiss matters by Lenz & Staehelin (Patrick Hünerwadel); on Northern Ireland matters by L'Estrange & Brett (Paul McBride) and on Canadian law matters by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, with a team that included David Lemieux, Marc Novello and Francis Trifiro.