LONDON -- Leveraged buyout firm Apax Partners LLP plans to raise 1.4 billion Swiss francs in loans and bonds, roughly $1.5 billion, to finance its leveraged buyout of France Telecom SA's (FTE.FR) Orange Switzerland mobile phone unit, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.

Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) Deutsche Bank AG (DB) JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS AG (UBS) are involved with arranging the financing the people said, in a mixture of loans and bonds.

Apax Partners wasn't immediately available to comment Friday.

Leveraged finance deals of this size are relatively few in Europe now due to ongoing concern about the euro zone debt crisis and as banks contract their balance sheets to comply with regulations.

The European Central Bank's decision to inject nearly EUR500 billion in three-year money into the financial market through its long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, is buoying corporate and government bond markets alike.

Under the LTRO, banks with eligible collateral can borrow as much money as they want for three years to ensure banks retain access to funding while a solution to the euro zone crisis remains elusive.

Apax partners beat strong competition from trade and private equity to buy Orange Switzerland last year--eventually clinching the deal days after Christmas with a EUR1.6 billion bid, higher than the business had been expected to fetch. However, with Orange now under its belt, Apax will be considering a tie-up with rival player Swiss telecom Sunrise Communications, which was always going to be a play in the deal.

However, any potential merger between Orange Switzerland and Sunrise, owned by CVC Capital Partners, will attract the attention of Switzerland's competition regulator which blocked a proposed merger between the two in 2010.

Switzerland has three mobile operators and it was the possibility of having just two players that led to last year's blocked merger, said Vincent Martenet, President of WEKO, the Swiss Competition Commission.

(Carol Dean and Marietta Cauchi in London contributed to this article)

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