De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek has advised German publisher Axel Springer on acquiring a minority stake in Blendle, jointly with The New York Times.

Blendle is a news start-up from the Netherlands operating a digital kiosk selling individual articles from newspapers and magazines to internet users. The company was founded in 2013 by two former journalists and launched in the Netherlands six months ago. Articles cost EUR 0.20 on average and publishers keep 70% of the revenue.

Team

Olswang has advised BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, on a new long-term creative partnership with AMC Networks, the global entertainment company behind acclaimed series Mad Men and The Walking Dead. The two companies have previously collaborated on dramas including Top of the Lake and The Honourable Woman.

DLA Piper advised WPP, one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy groups and its wholly-owned media research and analytics business Kantar Media on the acquisition of France based Civolution's "NexTracker audience measurement" and "SyncNow second screen audio watermarking" business.

Davis Polk advised IHS Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries in connection with a Rule 144A offering by IHS Inc. of an aggregate principal amount of $750 million of 5% senior notes due 2022. IHS Inc. used the net proceeds from the offering of the notes, together with cash on hand, to repay all amounts outstanding under its existing $250 million unsecured term loan and to repay a portion of the $850 million of outstanding borrowings under its new $1.3 billion senior unsecured revolving facility.   

Gide has advised the founding shareholders of the Visiodent company, and some members of their families, on the simplified tender offer for the balance of its share capital launched by its majority shareholder Groupe Visiodent, a newly created company controlled by said shareholders. This offer was filed following the contribution by the founding shareholders and their families of all the shares they held in the share capital of Visiodent to Groupe Visiodent.

Slaughter and May advised Chime Communications PLC ('Chime') on its acquisition of SJX Partners. SJX Partners is a sports and entertainment marketing business based in Connecticut, United States that represents a range of key sports and entertainment businesses including US Tennis Association, Cirque du Soleil and Little League Baseball.

Macfarlanes has advised leading global advertising and marketing communications services company Omnicom on its consolidation of some of its London based businesses into a major office development at Bankside 2 and Bankside 3 in London.

Comprising 370,000 sq ft of office space, this is one of the largest office lettings of 2014 in central London.  The deal will see Omnicom bring several separate offices under one roof for the first time.

After an in-depth analysis (phase II), the French Competition Authority have cleared SFR’s takeover by Numericable Group (Altice’s subsidiary) on October 27, 2014. The transaction amounted to EUR 17 billion, including EUR 13.5 billion in cash and Vivendi's 20% stake in the new entity.

This is a positive outcome to a deal which will go down in the history of the French telecoms sector - Bird & Bird and Franklin advised Numericable throughout the deal.

Davis Polk is advising Telecom Italia S.p.A. on the amendment and restatement of the terms of its $960 million sale of its entire controlling interest in Telecom Argentina to Fintech Telecom LLC, an affiliate of Fintech Advisory, Inc.

Telecom Italia is Italy’s largest telecommunications company, with operations in Italy and Brazil, and is also involved in the media and manufacturing industries. Telecom Argentina is the major local telecommunications company for the northern part of Argentina, including the city of Buenos Aires.

Paul Hastings LLP is representing TierPoint in its acquisition of Xand, a leading, privately held provider of colocation, cloud, disaster recovery, and managed services with six data centers located in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.