Working alongside lead counsel Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Travers Smith LLP has advised Japanese media group Nikkei on certain important aspects of its acquisition of the Financial Times from Pearson in a deal valued at £884 million.

The transaction marks the biggest acquisition by a Japanese media organization and has seen Nikkei beat off competition from Germany’s leading digital publisher Axel Springer.

Noerr has advised Deutsche Telekom AG on the takeover of 7,000 mobile network sites from Telefónica Deutschland. The interdisciplinary Noerr team was headed by the Düsseldorf corporate partners Dr Jens Liese and Dr Maurice Séché and the Berlin telecommunications law partner Dr Tobias Frevert.

A team of Noerr lawyers has advised Telekom Deutschland GmbH on the acquisition of several frequencies in the 3.5 GHz spectrum. The seller is DBD Deutsche Breitband Dienste GmbH, in which the British financial investor Shore Capital Group has a majority holding.

Telekom is acquiring the national and six regional frequencies from DBD in a share deal.

Advisors to Telekom Deutschland GmbH: Noerr

Charles Russell Speechlys has advised London based technology provider, IT Lab, on its acquisition of Manchester-based IT provider, JMC IT.

IT Lab is an award-winning technology and IT managed services provider with 17 years’ experience of delivering the highest standards of service to organisations across all sectors. It is based in London with offices in Woking and Cape Town in South Africa. The company is ranked within the Top 5 European and Top 50 global managed services suppliers.

Taylor Wessing has advised Sky on its acquisition of a majority stake in Blast! Films, the independent production company with one of the best reputations in British television for producing high-quality, distinctive and innovative documentaries and dramas.

Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company, serving 21 million customers across the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria.

Blast! Films was founded in 1994 and is best known as producer of shows such as The Supervet, The Route Masters and 999: What's Your Emergency?

A team from Fieldfisher led by partner Graeme Nuttall OBE advised Agilisys on its transition to employee ownership.

Agilisys is a fast growing IT and business services partner.

Herbert Smith Freehills advised on the UK real estate aspects of the sale for Pearson who has owned the FT Group for almost 60 years.

The team advising was led by real estate partner Alice Dockar, assisted by associate Chris Robinson.

Commenting on the transaction, Alice Dockar said: "This is a significant transaction for our client Pearson. As a key player in the developing education sector, Pearson will now be fully focusing on its global education strategy."

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is advising Pearson on its sale of the Financial Times Group to Nikkei Inc.
The transaction, valued at £844 million is subject to a number of regulatory approvals and is expected to close in Q4 2015.

McCann FitzGerald advised the principal shareholders of Powervation Limited on the sale of the company to ROHM Company Limited for approximately US$70 million in an all-cash transaction.

Powervation is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Cork, Ireland with facilities in San Jose, Taipei, Shenzhen, and Beijing. It is a leading innovator in digital power controllers serving high-performance computing, cloud and communications infrastructure markets.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Yahoo! JAPAN on its joint venture with global travel search engine Skyscanner Ltd to expand both companies' penetration of the lucrative Japanese travel search market.

Skyscanner attracts over 40 million users every month and will share its search engine technology with Yahoo! JAPAN, in turn gaining access to Yahoo! JAPAN's audience – which currently attracts over 80 million daily users, generating some 60 billion pages views per month.