Ares Senior Debt Financing for Phoenix Equity Partners Acquisition in Forest Holidays Group

Dechert LLP advised Ares Management Limited (“Ares”) and The Royal Bank of Scotland (“RBS”) on their provision of a senior debt financing package to support Phoenix Equity Partners acquisition of a majority stake in the Forest Holidays Group. 

Phoenix Equity Partners will be investing in the Forest Holidays Group alongside LDC, the private equity arm of the Lloyds Banking Group, the Forestry Commission and Management (who were all previous investors in the Forest Holidays Group). 

Forest Holidays Group is a UK holiday operator with luxury log cabins at nine locations across the UK. Part owned by the Forestry Commission and set exclusively within Forestry Commission land. Forest Holidays has grown from the first cabin built in Scotland in the 1970 to almost 600 cabins in stunning locations across the UK with almost 600 team members.

Dechert acted as Lead Senior counsel to both Ares and RBS and specifically as Unitranche counsel to Ares on intercreditor matters. Notably, this is the third financing transaction in which Dechert has acted for Ares on this quarter.

The London-based Dechert team was led by global finance partner Philip Butler with assistance from global finance associates Smridhi Gulati and Roxanne Paes. Additional support was also provided by tax associate Daniel Hawthorne and real estate associates David Gervais and Isaac Bordon.

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