The London office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP has advised Eutelsat Communications in an agreement to create a joint venture with ViaSat, Inc.

Davis Polk is advising Millicom International Cellular S.A. on the sale to Orange S.A. of its business in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is operated under the brand “Tigo.” The mobile market in the DRC is undergoing significant growth and is currently the largest mobile market in Central and West Africa after Nigeria with more than 40 million subscribers. This transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

Davis Polk advised Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (“Hikvision”) in connection with its debut issue of €400 million 1.25% notes due 2019. The notes are to be listed on the Irish Stock Exchange.

Skadden advised Internet Plus Holdings, a holding company created by Meituan and Dianping, on a $3.3 billion round of venture funding, the largest ever undertaken. The firm also advised Dianping on its strategic transaction with Meituan in October.

Reed Smith is advising Microsoft on its acquisition of London-based TouchType, the maker of ‘Swiftkey’, a predictive keyboard powered by artificial intelligence that is installed on hundreds of millions of smartphones.

The Reed Smith team, led by partners David Boutcher, Mike Young, Gregor Pryor and Andrew Clark, is advising on all aspects of the acquisition.

Reed Smith partner, Mike Young, commented:

As reported by The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets, eLong, Inc., a Chinese mobile and online travel service provider, that it has agreed to be taken private by China E-dragon Holdings Ltd. At the closing of the transaction, China E-dragon Holdings will be owned by a consortium including Paul, Weiss client TCH Sapphire Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Tencent Holdings Ltd, other existing shareholders and members of management.

White & Case LPP has advised on the merger of Italiaonline S.p.A. and its subsidiary Seat Pagine Gialle S.p.A (Seat).

The merger will take place through the reverse merger by incorporation of Italiaonline into Seat, and represents the completion of a wider integration between Seat and Italiaonline. The merger's strategic goal is to create the leading company in the Italian digital advertising market for large organizations, and for local marketing services for small and medium sized enterprises.

Clifford Chance advised Affinity, a Kellogg Brown & Root and Elbit Systems joint venture, as preferred bidder to support the procurement, delivery and maintenance of three new fleets of fixed wing training aircraft and related infrastructure for the UK Ministry of Defence.

We have advised Grapeshot Limited, the London and New York based digital advertising technology (Ad Tech) company specializing in keyword contextual targeting, on its latest VC and angel investment round raising around US$ 8.5million.

Grapeshot’s technology helps build connections for brands and publishers as well as their technology partners, using their page crawling algorithm, and enables them to better target their advertising campaigns across multiple territories, languages and markets.

Allen & Overy is advising Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata), one of Asia’s largest telecommunications companies, on a transformational merger in the Bangladeshi telecommunications industry. The merger will result in the formation of the second largest mobile telecommunications company in Bangladesh, with a customer base of approximately 40 million, and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2016.