A multibillion-euro liability package is central to talks as EQT has briefed lenders on a restructuring timetable for Cerba. The group's obligations, including senior secured debt, senior unsecured notes and lease liabilities, are the focus of negotiations, and the revolver has been heavily drawn. EQT has already provided liquidity while advisers line up on both sides and a creditor steering committee has gone restricted. The discussions will determine how much new cash EQT must add to limit haircuts and restore borrowing availability.

EQT has started formal outreach to creditors as it shapes a debt plan for Cerba, the French clinical-laboratory group it bought in 2021. The company's liabilities add up to roughly €5 billion when you combine senior secured debt, senior unsecured notes and lease obligations. That total frames the talks now underway between the sponsor, lenders and Cerba’s shareholders.

Steering committee activity has accelerated. A creditor steering committee has gone restricted and lender meetings are under way. Some parts of the lender base have been meeting in Paris. Formal discussions were set up to begin in the spring, while other creditor groups expect talks to resume later in the year. The timetable is shaping how fast any restructuring would be negotiated and implemented.

Where the pressure is coming from

Cerba has been running tight on liquidity. The group fully drew its €450 million revolver at the end of the third quarter of 2025, after already drawing down part of the facility earlier in the year. By the end of March, the revolver had about €366 million drawn. That heavy use of the revolving credit line tightened the company’s cash flexibility and pushed its sponsors and lenders to consider recapitalisation options.

EQT injected emergency liquidity late last year. In November 2025, EQT committed €100 million in new financing that sits pari passu with the senior secured debt. That money extended Cerba’s runway and bought time for restructuring discussions.

Debt mix and market signals

The group’s headline numbers show why the market has been active. The senior secured stack runs at about €4.183 billion. Senior unsecured notes total about €525 million. Lease liabilities add roughly €297 million.

Taken together, those obligations approach €5 billion.

Investors have been pricing in material credit risk. The 2028 senior secured notes were trading in the low 70s on price and carrying yields in the high teens. The 2029 senior unsecured notes showed materially wider yields. And parts of the revolver have changed hands in the secondary market, with roughly €90 million trading recently at levels in the high 60s to low 70s and a tranche of about €9.5 million clearing in the high 60s on a single day in late July. Those prices reflect doubts about liquidity and the likely depth of any restructuring.

Mastheads

Who’s at the table

Advisers and creditor groups are already in place. EQT is working with Ondra Partners and Moelis for financial advice and Latham & Watkins for legal counsel. Cerba’s management has been assisted by Rothschild & Co. And Gibson Dunn. On the lender side, groups representing first-lien holders have engaged PJT as financial adviser, while legal counsel includes Milbank and Willkie Farr.

Around 70% of the senior secured lenders signed a cooperation agreement and a set of funds has emerged as active in the creditor process. Names involved with the steering committee include Sona, PGIM, Invesco, Anchorage and Arini. Some RCF holders have cross-holdings in the term loan B due 2028 and have mandated Paul Hastings and Evercore for representation.

Cerba’s biologist shareholders, who hold majority voting rights under French law for clinical laboratories, have also mobilised advisers. Lazard is advising the biologist group, with Francois Kopf, who will join Linklaters’ restructuring team, providing additional legal support. That shareholder bloc is focused on protecting control of the lab operations throughout any restructuring.

Deal contours being discussed

Early proposals that EQT has put on the table include a substantial equity top-up. One preliminary outline involved an equity contribution in the low hundreds of millions of euros in exchange for a partial reduction of senior secured debt. That initial construct suggested an equity injection on the order of €300 million paired with about a 25% haircut to senior secured lenders.

Market feedback so far has signalled lenders want more new money to accept a consensual deal. Independent restructuring work modelled larger sponsor support. A restructuring analysis completed early in February set a base case that assumed an equity injection of about €475 million by EQT, the full conversion of the 2029 senior unsecured notes into equity, and a roughly 35% reduction of senior secured debt. In that scenario the 35% reduction was structured as a 25% haircut plus a 10% repayment funded from the sponsor cash contribution.

The same analysis showed that carving out a sizeable sponsor equity contribution would restore borrowing capacity. In the base-case projection net leverage would fall to about 5.4 times, measured using last-twelve-month adjusted EBITDA of €522 million. That compares with a reported net leverage of 9.3 times at Sept. 30, 2025 and the roughly 6.7 times target that EQT built around the business at acquisition.

Alongside commercial negotiations, Cerba and its shareholder group have approached the Paris Economic Court to seek an amicable procedure under the mandat ad hoc or conciliation route. The company has sought mediation with a named judicial administrator. That step aims to provide a structured forum for creditor talks and could be used to manage sensitive timings, such as interest dates.

The company has also discussed asking creditors to delay an interest payment due in August by six months. That measure would be a bridging tool to avoid an event of default while restructuring terms are hammered out. It would require creditor agreement and reflects how pressing liquidity timelines are for the business.

Creditors face a trade-off. They can push for deeper restructurings that preserve more economic value but risk protracted legal fights.

Or they can accept more sponsor equity now to limit haircuts and restore revolver availability.

Related Articles

Creditors could be asked to delay an August interest payment by six months, and responses along with a Paris Economic Court mediation will determine whether EQT’s €100 million lifeline is enough to buy time.

This article was created with AI assistance.