Gautam Agarwal

About Gautam Agarwal

Gautam Agarwal is a counsel in the firm’s finance group and is based in the Hong Kong office. In addition to his broad finance practice across various regions, Gautam also leads the India Finance Practice of the firm.

Gautam has over 13 years of specialist experience acting on a broad range of cross-border financing transactions, including advising private equity sponsors, private credit funds, corporates, financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds on some of the largest and most complex leveraged acquisitions in the South East Asia and South Asia regions. He also has a wide range of general banking and finance experience, including leveraged finance, fund finance, equity-backed lending and general structured lending.

Recent work

• Blackstone on multiple transactions, including the margin loan financing (and subsequent refinancings) in connection with its investment in the listed Embassy Office Parks REIT in India (the first offshore margin loan of its kind in India), the margin loan financing in connection with its investment in Nexus Select Trust REIT, the financing in relation to its subscription of H shares convertible bonds in a Hong Kong-listed company and the margin loan financing in connection with its investment in Mindspace Business Parks REIT
• Hillhouse on various margin loan and fund level financings, including its structured investment in a listed company in the PRC
• Advent International on multiple transactions, including the leveraged financing for the acquisition of Suven Pharma, the unitranche leveraged financing for the buy-out of Bharat Serums and Vaccines, the leveraged financing for the acquisition of Manjushree Technopack, the margin loan financing in relation to its investment in Crompton Greaves and the financing in relation to its investment in an end-to-end engineering solutions company
• Brookfield Asset Management on multiple transactions, including the margin financing backed by its units in Brookfield India Real Estate Trust
• KKR on multiple transactions, including the leveraged financing for its acquisition of Ness Digital Engineering, the leveraged financing (and subsequent refinancing) for its acquisition of EuroKids pre-school chain in India and the margin loan financing in connection with its investment in a healthcare group listed in India
• BPEA EQT (formerly Baring Private Equity Asia) on multiple transactions, including the leveraged financing for the take-private of Hexaware, the leveraged financing for the acquisition of a controlling stake in Coforge (formerly NIIT Technologies) and the leveraged financing of the take-private of Ginko International (the largest take-private consumer transaction in Taiwan at that time)
• TPG and a sovereign fund on the financing in relation to their minority stake acquisition in a Vietnamese group
• Carlyle on the acquisition of HCP Global, a leading Chinese packaging firm, from Baring Private Equity Asia
• Apax on various margin loan financings in connection with its investment in various portfolio companies
• Bain Capital Private Equity on multiple transactions, including the financing in connection with its investment in a listed bank in India, the financing in connection with its investment in an end-to-end engineering solutions company head-quartered in South-east Asia and various dividend recapitalisation and refinancing transactions for its portfolio companies across the Asia-Pacific

Note: the recent work highlights also include representation prior to joining Freshfields