Osborne Clarke has completed a trio of M&A deals in the recruitment sector in the last month, evidencing the increasing appetite of recruiters to broaden their service lines and geographic reach.
Shoosmiths has advised Poundland Group plc on all real estate matters on its £55 million acquisition of 99p Stores Limited.
The deal follows approval from the Competition and Markets Authority and includes 99p Stores' network of over 250 stores, which serves more than two million customers a week. Poundland paid £47.5 million in cash plus £7.5 million in new shares. The deal has been partly funded by a share placing.
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised Shandong Offshore Equipment Co., Ltd. (Shandong Offshore) in its successful acquisition of 100% equity interest in Northern Offshore Ltd. (NOF), an Oslo Stock Exchange listed company, with a consideration of approximately NOK 1.3 billion(US$160.58 million). After the acquisition, NOF was delisted from Oslo Stock Exchange.
National legal business DWF has advised private equity firm NorthEdge Capital on the secondary management buyout of Arthouse, one of the UK’s largest suppliers of interior décor products.
Allen & Overy is advising Exponent Private Equity (Exponent) on its binding offer, together with Electra Partners, for Photobox Group, Europe’s leading digital consumer service for personalised products and gifts. Photobox Group is the parent of the PhotoBox, Moonpig, PaperShaker, Sticky9, Hofmann, Posterjack and posterXXL brands.
AFINUM acquires together with the management Lomb Art AG, Freienbach (CH), a leading provider of POP displays and packaging for the watch and jewellery industry. VISCHER advises AFINUM in this transaction. The VISCHER team includes Jürg Luginbühl (Partner), Gian-Andrea Caprez (Managing Associate) and Sebastian Huber (Associate).
The Sheffield offices of law firm Irwin Mitchell and advisory firm Grant Thornton have advised Rotherham-based Cepac Limited, a leading independent UK supplier of corrugated packaging, on its acquisition of Woodhill Printers.
The deal to buy the Alfreton-based company, which also trades as Amber Valley Packaging, is the latest corporate transaction to be made by the £100m turnover business as it continues to expand and builds on its market position by acquiring businesses that add to its unrivalled service offering.
Slaughter and May is advising ITV plc on its acquisition of 100% of UTV Limited, which owns the television assets of UTV Media plc, for a total cash consideration of £100 million. The transaction is led by ITV's in house legal and commerical teams and is subject to regulatory and UTV Media shareholder approval.
DLA Piper represented Harrison Street Real Estate Capital, LLC in connection with its proposed US$1.9 billion acquisition of Campus Crest Communities, Inc. (NYSE: CCG). On October 16, 2015, certain affiliates of Harrison Street entered into a definitive merger agreement with Campus Crest pursuant to which, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, Harrison Street will acquire all issued and outstanding shares of common stock of Campus Crest. The transaction is currently anticipated to close during the first quarter of 2016.
The international law firm Baker & McKenzie has advised the Barry-Wehmiller Group, a U.S. family-owned mechanical engineering group, on the acquisition of the operations of Winkler+Dünnebier GmbH (W+D) from Körber AG. The acquisition includes W+D's operations (including the operations of its subsidiary POEM GmbH) in Neuwied and Löhne, Germany, along with the subsidiaries W+D North America and W+D Asia Pacific. The parties anticipate closing of the transaction to take place at the end of December 2015, after fulfillment of all closing conditions.