Lawyers from the Manchester office of Weightmans LLP have secured a multi-million pound fund investment for an independent music publisher.

NautaDutilh successfully assisted Helios Towers Africa (HTA) with its debut USD 600 million 9.125% high yield bonds offering, listed on the Irish Stock Exchange.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Bank acted as initial purchasers, coordinators and bookrunners. Standard Chartered acted as initial purchasers and lead arranger.

In the prolonged legal disputes between the German broadcaster ZDF and cable operators, Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (OLG) in its judgment handed down on 8 March 2017 again found in favour of ZDF, saying that ZDF did not have to pay any feed-in fees for feeding its programmes into the cable networks of Netcologne. ZDF was represented in these proceedings by the law firm Noerr and its partners Prof. Johannes Kreile and Helge Heinrich (VI U 15/13 (Kart)).

Dechert LLP advised baramundi software AG (baramundi), the Augsburg-based endpoint management specialist, on its sale to WITTENSTEIN Group. WITTENSTEIN acquired the entire share capital of baramundi in a sale structured as an auction process. The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the purchase price.

Advised Prime Focus World, a provider of creative and technology services to international film studios, in connection with an secured refinancing arranged by BNP Paribas Fortis and a new mezzanine facility provided by ING Bank.

Houthoff Buruma team included: Helena Sprenger

Gide advised the dealers in connection with the establishment by Vivendi of an EMTN Programme of EUR 3 billion.

This Programme was registered with the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers on 22 March 2017.

Gide’s team was led by Hubert du Vignaux (partner) assisted by Laurent Vincent (counsel), Aude-Laurène Dourdain and Juliette Pierre (associates).

Vivendi was advised by Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier.

Shearman & Sterling advised Salt, a subsidiary of Matterhorn Telecom (the “Senior Secured Notes Issuer”) and Matterhorn Telecom Holding (the “Senior Notes Issuer", together with the Senior Secured Notes Issuer, the “Issuers”), on (i) the consent solicitation for certain amendments to the existing indentures, (ii) the Senior Secured Notes Issuer’s offer to purchase and solicitation of its outstanding floating rate senior secured notes due 2022, and (iii) the combined offering by the Issuers of CHF 687 million (equivalent) aggregate principal amount of

Slaughter and May is advising Vodafone on the proposed merger of its subsidiary Vodafone India (excluding its 42% stake in Indus Towers) with Idea Cellular, to create India’s largest telecom operator with the country’s widest mobile network.

Idea Cellular is listed on the Indian Stock Exchanges. Following completion of the transaction, Vodafone will own 45.1% and the Aditya Birla Group will own 26.0% of the combined company. Vodafone and Aditya Birla will have joint control of the combined company under a shareholders’ agreement.

Paul Hastings LLP has advised CSC, a global leader in next-generation IT services and innovative cloud solutions, on its investment in, and strategic collaboration with, Virtual Clarity. Virtual Clarity is a UK-headquartered leading provider of IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) transformation strategy and leadership, and the agreement will jointly help enterprises accelerate their transformation to leading cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

Pinsent Masons has advised Sage Group plc (Sage), the UK's largest tech company, on the acquisition of the UK's fastest growing tech scale-up Fairsail.

Fairsail is a global cloud based Human Capital Management and people management system for mid-sized businesses.

Currently a minority shareholder, the acquisition will see Sage take full ownership of Fairsail, building on the success of a shared product, Sage People, launched last year and allowing Sage to offer a single cloud solution to manage people, payroll, payments and accounting.