Sidley represented longstanding client Eldridge Industries as lead provider of equity and debt financing to Metropolis Technologies, Inc. for Metropolis’s take-private acquisition of SP+ Corporation. Metropolis obtained total financing of approximately US$1.8 billion for the acquisition of NASDAQ-listed SP+, with an enterprise value of approximately US$1.5 billion. The acquisition was announced last October and closed on May 16.
Metropolis financed the acquisition with US$1.05 billion in Series C preferred stock financing and US$550 million of term debt financing, each provided on a committed basis by Eldridge Industries and other institutions. Metropolis also obtained a separate US$175 million revolving debt facility from PNC Bank, National Association.
Eldridge Industries, which was co-founded by Todd Boehly, Tony Minella, and Duncan Bagshaw, invests in businesses across the Insurance, Asset Management, Technology, Mobility, Sports & Gaming, Media & Music, Real Estate, and Consumer landscapes. Metropolis is a technology company whose computer vision platform enables checkout-free payment experiences. SP+ is a technology and operations management provider of mobility services for aviation, commercial, hospitality, and institutional clients throughout North America and Europe.
The Sidley team was led by Myles C. Pollin (Global Finance), along with partners Giselle M. Barth and Ram Burshtine (Global Finance), John Butler, Bill Howell, and Geoffrey W. Levin (M&A and Private Equity), and Christian Brause (Tax). The team also included Kyle Fong, Rachel Fridhandler, Hannah L. Marshall, Amanda M. Patterson, Adrienn T. Portnoy, and Gabriel Saltarelli (M&A and Private Equity), Shawn Bagdasarian, Scott Dawson, John Jiang, Alexandros Roussos, Rachel C. Schatz, Jolena Sun, Shneur Wolvovsky, and Shaobin Zheng (Global Finance), Tyler J. Combest, Eric M. Grosshandler, and Joel Lifshitz (Tax), Laura Collins and Jamie Sadler (Antitrust and Competition), Blake C. Fillion, Elizabeth Shea Fries, Joseph Schwartz, Carla G. Teodoro, and Bernie Zamichow (Investment Funds), Marian Fielding and Eric Winwood (Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation), James Mendenhall (Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy), Dusan Clark, Lauren G. Grau, and Dina M. P. Kang (Technology and Life Sciences Transactions), Stephen McInerney (Privacy and Cybersecurity), and Beatriz Azcuy and Connor T. Evans (Real Estate).
The principal internal Eldridge Industries group lawyers involved in the transaction were Adam Fassnacht, Peter Saba, and Robyn Saad.
