Dealmakers from AG's Manchester Corporate team have advised NorthEdge Capital on its investment in environmental and industrial services specialist Future Industrial Services (FIS), backing the management buy-out from its Irish listed parent company, One51 PLC, at an equity value of £16m.

Headquartered in Kirkby, Merseyside, FIS works with clients including government, major utility and multi-national companies to provide a range of cost effective solutions to waste management and decontamination requirements.

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised Nauta Capital on the structuring and close of its new Private Equity Fund, Nauta Tech Invest IV, FCR, with investment commitments of €155 million.

Isabel Rodríguez, Head of Funds in KWM - Madrid led the advice to Nauta Capital, assisted by Senior Associate Ildefonso Alier and Associate María de Orueta.

Bird & Bird has represented Avalanche Studios in relation to the recent investment by Nordisk Film of more than USD 10M for a minority ownership share in Avalanche Studios.

Houthoff Buruma advised Vitol and Helios Investment Partners with the acquisition of a 20% interest in Vivo Energy from Shell. Further to the acquisition of Shell’s 20% shareholding in Vivo Energy by Vitol Africa B.V., Helios Investment Partners, acting on behalf of the funds to which it is advisor, and Vitol jointly own 100% of Vivo Energy.
Houthoff Buruma team included: Kyoko Kuijers-Tollenaar , Alexander Kaarls

BRP Systems and Valedo have entered into a strategic partnership for acceleration of expansion and growth. The partnership secures additional resources and competence to fuel BRP’s continued development of BRP’s technical market leading ERP software and services for membership handling, booking and payment solutions to fitness facility operators in the Nordics and Europe.

Clifford Chance advised Fresenius Kabi on the acquisition of Merck KGaA’s biosimilars business. Fresenius Kabi is an affiliate of Fresenius KGaA & Co. SE. The acquisition comprises the entire development pipeline and the product pipeline which has a focus on oncology and autoimmune diseases with current branded sales of around US$30 billion.

Roschier represented Nets in the acquisition of the merchant acquiring business of OP Financial Group consisting of approximately 15,000 merchant contracts with an underlying annual card turnover of around DKK 37 billion from Visa and MasterCard transactions in Finland.

The Roschier core advising team included Jouni Salmi, Antti-Jussi Partanen, Jenni Rosenlöf and Anna Haapanen.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Italian handbags and accessories specialist Furla on the acquisition of its Australian distribution network from existing distributor, Luxury Retail Group.

Furla has a direct presence in 100 countries across the world. It opened its first boutique in Australia in December 2013 at Westfield Sydney, and now has 15 stores in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast. In 2017 Furla plans to enlarge the network by opening five new stores across Australia and New Zealand.

DLA Piper has advised China Ping An Insurance Overseas Holdings on its strategic investment in popular E-platform BIGO Live. This is the third round of financing for BIGO Live, which has raised in aggregate over US$180 million since its inception in 2015.

Taylor Wessing has advised Friction Free Shaving, the world’s first shaving subscription company for women, on the successful £1.25 million series A round financing with Athene Capital.

The investment by funds advised by Athene Capital LLP will facilitate an exciting partnership and a comprehensive media campaign with Northern & Shell, one of the UK’s largest publishing groups whose media portfolio includes OK! Magazine, New! Magazine, Express and Star newspapers, together with access to its multi-channel television advertising inventory.