London – Hogan Lovells is advising Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd (MHI) on its entry into of a global joint venture between Mitsubishi-Hitachi Metals Machinery, Inc., itself a joint venture between MHI, Hitachi and IHI Corporation, and Siemens, in the field of metals machinery technology.

The joint venture will be a global full spectrum supplier of facilities, products and services for the iron, steel and aluminum industries and have more than 9,000 employees.  Its headquarters will be located in Great Britain and its main divisional centers will be in Linz, Erlangen, Hiroshima and Tokyo.
 
MHI, which is listed on the Tokyo stock exchange, is a multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It employs over 60,000 people worldwide.

Siemens, which is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange, is a multinational engineering and electronics conglomerate company headquartered in Berlin and Munich and Europe's largest engineering company.  It employs over 350,000 people worldwide.

The completion of the transaction is subject to clearance from the relevant competition and other regulatory authorities.

This is the third global joint venture on which Hogan Lovells has advised MHI in the past two years and the firm is advising MHI on all aspects of this transaction.

The transaction is being led out of the London office by corporate partner Ben Higson, supported by a large cross-office multi-disciplinary team from offices across the Hogan Lovells network, including in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Japan and the US, and involving partners Matthias Hirschmann, Karen Hughes, Christian Stoll and Chris Thomas, of counsel Robert Darwin and senior associate Jan Blockx, which is working closely with the legal and M&A teams at MHI.

Commenting on the transaction, Ben Higson said:

"We are delighted to be advising MHI on this important transaction, which brings together two partners with outstanding and complementary technological competencies.  We are enjoying working closely with the legal and M&A teams at MHI, whom we know well, and are looking forward to continuing to support MHI through to completion."