Eversheds has supported Aurelius Equity Opportunities (Aurelius), a leading pan-European mid-market investor, on its acquisition of the European business of Office Depot, a US-based provider of office equipment and contract services. The acquisition completed over the new year holiday period.
Eversheds has advised leading managed IT services GCI on its acquisition of Hertfordshire-based unified communications specialist, Freedom Communications.
The Eversheds team was led by corporate partner Jon Cox-Brown and comprised principal associates Matthew Hussey (corporate) and Nathan Pritchard (banking) and associate Victoria Towers (real estate).
This is the fifth acquisition for GCI in under 12 months. It follows hot on the heels of its acquisition of high profile Cloud specialist Outsourcery six months ago, on which Eversheds also advised.
Hill Dickinson’s corporate team has advised Manchester-based property services company Styles&Wood on its acquisition of The GDM Group for £4m.
GDM is a specialist mechanical, electrical and environmental consultancy which employs 50 staff from its Dartford headquarters in Kent. It services some of the UK’s largest property owners across a range of sectors including retail, education, commercial offices and data centres.
Hill Dickinson corporate partner Jonathan Gillow advised on the deal, alongside associate Sean Lightfoot.
Pinsent Masons has advised Sovereign Capital, the UK private equity Buy & Build specialist on the combination of Optionis, the largest employee solutions operator in the UK, with its portfolio company Arkarius Group. Arkarius Group is the UK's largest group providing accounting services to the flexible workforce.
Simmons & Simmons advised Gangtai Group Corporation Limited (Gangtai Group), a leading private owned conglomerate from China, on the acquisition of an 85% stake of Buccellati Holding Italia S.p.A., a prestigious Italian luxury jewellery brand with close to 100 years of history. The equity value of the transaction is approximately Euro 230m.
Ashurst advised BGC Partners and certain of its affiliates on the acquisition of Besso Insurance Group, an independent Lloyd's of London insurance broker.
The overall deal will see BGC Partners, a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets, become the sole owner of Besso, which is currently valued at £70.5 million.
Noerr has advised Volkswagen Financial Services AG on another strategic investment in a German company. Europe’s largest automotive financial services provider is acquiring around 51 per cent of the shares in LogPay Transport Services GmbH, a subsidiary of DVB Bank SE, thereby expanding its stake in the cross-European business in fuel cards and service cards and the fuel trade.
DLA Piper advised LLR Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing in middle-market growth technology companies, in its acquisition of BluVector, a machine-learning, threat-detection and cyber-hunting solution provider, from Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Linklaters advised Xiamen International Bank (XIB) on its acquisition of approximately 64% of Chiyu Banking Corporation from BOC Hong Kong.
XIB is a Chinese commercial bank headquartered in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, the People's Republic of China. It also owns Luso International Bank in Macau. Chiyu Bank is a licensed bank in Hong Kong with a network of 24 branches in Hong Kong and two branches and two sub-branches in mainland China.
Baloise is to acquire a majority shareholding in Pax Anlage AG and to make a public takeover offer for the remaining shares. This transaction represents a further expansion of Baloise's real-estate portfolio and Baloise thereby invests up to CHF 288 million of insurance assets in a secure and attractive asset class. The transaction is subject to governmental approvals.