Andreea Șerban is Managing Associate in the Banking & Finance department of Reff & Associates, member of Deloitte Legal, the international network of legal practices working with Deloitte all over the world. She joined Reff & Associates in 2011, after graduating the studies of the Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest as valedictorian (with the highest ranking: 10/10).
Relevant experience
With over 7 years of experience, Andreea has built an extensive track record advising on all areas of transactional banking, including transfers of distressed loan portfolios, as well as on M&A deals in the financial services industry and on regulatory & compliance engagements:
Trading of large loan portfolios & single tickets exposures:
– During the last 4.5 years she assisted in more than 20 loan & leasing portfolio deals with an overall par value over EUR 6 billion, where she provided a full spectrum of sell-side or buy-side services, from pre-transaction decision-making, via due diligence, structuring aspects, bids’ benchmark, transaction execution and closing to post-execution servicing. Her experience includes working either in local or cross-border deals, true or synthetic sales, with both performing and NPL, corporate and retail portfolios, as well as on large corporate single ticket exposures.
– Additionally, she has valuable experience in the design set up of the servicing platform/drafting of service level agreements (SLAs), as well as in the structuring of co-investment structures for sharing funding costs when acquiring an NPL portfolio.
– In 2018, when the banks were discouraged to sell the NPL portfolios due to increased tax costs and the Romanian secondary distressed debt market almost deadlocked, Andreea worked as part of a mixed team of specialists with several specialisations (e.g. tax and accounting advisors) to develop innovative service offerings reshaping the existing NPL business model.
Her key clients (top players from both sides of the table – banks and regional investors) believe that Andreea “has an excellent knowledge of the Romanian NPL market”, “provides very pragmatic advice, in a client-friendly and easy-to-use manner” and “is personable, determined, extremely knowledgeable, balanced and able to propose solutions acceptable to both parties, avoiding deadlocks and moving forward the deals to close” (IFLR1000 Legal Guide 2019 Edition).
M&A in the banking sector: Andreea also worked on very complex M&A deals in banking and leasing industries (e.g. bank acquisition projects (share deal), transfer of performing lending businesses in the banking and leasing fields), where she often takes the lead and coordinates a large team of lawyers with various specializations. Recent highlights include experience on cross-border winding-up of credit institutions mandates.
Risk management, regulatory and compliance work: She served entities operating in regulated industries (financial and non-banking institutions, broker-dealers, insurance companies, e-money institutions etc.) on various regulatory, compliance and corporate governance matters.
Deal highlights include:
· Coordination for more than 6 months of a team of 13 lawyers with mixed specializations (banking, data protection, real estate, litigation etc) assisting Intesa Sanpaolo group in the implementation of the acquisition of the business of the Romanian Branch of former Veneto Banca (in liquidation), comprising of performing loan and leasing portfolios, security packages, retail deposits, movable assets and real estate assets, databases and records, employees, certain ongoing litigations, as well as the entire network of 19 agencies;
· Legal counsel to Argo throughout the acquisition of a qualified holding in Leumi Bank Romania S.A. (ongoing process);
· Legal counsel to Banca Transilvania in the transfer in tranches of approx. EUR 350 million retail and corporate secured and unsecured NPL portfolios to several debt collection entities (Projects Arena & Castrum);
· Legal counsel to InvestCapital Malta LTD, part of Kruk Group, on the acquisition of a NPL retail secured, corporate & SME portfolio of approx. EUR 272 million from BRD (Project Iris);
· Legal counsel to Patria Bank on the sale in tranches of approx. EUR 100 million retail, corporate & SME loan portfolio to companies part of Kruk group (Project Elara).
