Baker & McKenzie advised Orkla ASA on its sale of 100 percent OJSC Orkla Brands Russia, a major Russian confectionery producer, to Slavyanka-Lyuks JSC, a member of Slavyanka, the Belgorod confectionery group. As part of the transaction, Baker & McKenzie also advised Orkla on the sale of its real estate property located in Yekaterinburg.

Renaissance Capital acted as Orkla’s exclusive financial advisor in this transaction.

Orkla Brands Russia has several production plants in Russia (in the Leningrad region, Yekaterinburg and Ulyanovsk) and owns such well-known brands as Krupskaya, SladCo, and Pekar.

Baker & McKenzie advised Orkla on all aspects of the transaction, including the vendor legal due diligence of Orkla’s Russian business, drafting and negotiating transaction documents and preparing antimonopoly filings on the seller’s behalf.

Baker & McKenzie’s multi-disciplinary team included lawyers from corporate and M&A, antitrust, employment, real estate and intellectual property practice groups from both the St. Petersburg and Moscow office. The team was led by the managing partner of Baker & McKenzie St. Petersburg, Maxim Kalinin, with support from St. Petersburg associates Olga Mazur, Roman Ishmukhametov, Edward Zadubrovsky, Olga Pankova, Anna Gavrilova, Alexander Tarasenko as well as Robert Gray and Marina Arzrumtsyan from the Moscow office.

Orkla ASA, which is a leading Norwegian supplier of branded consumer goods, has been a Baker & McKenzie client since 2000. The firm advised Orkla on several previous acquisitions in Russia and on various legal aspects of the company’s activities in the region.

“Our long-standing cooperation with Orkla demonstrates Baker & McKenzie’s commitment to clients and proves our ability to provide high-quality legal advice in complex transactions,” noted Maxim Kalinin.