The Belgian Lhoist Group has completed the acquisition of the majority shareholding in Walhalla Kalk GmbH & Co. KG from HeidelbergCement. HeidelbergCement has so far been operating two lime plants in Germany – the Walhalla Kalkwerk in Regensburg and Kalkwerk Istein near Basel. The latter was already acquired by Lhoist on 1 July 2015. The Belgian family business is one of the largest producers of lime products and employs around 6,000 employees at 90 locations in 25 countries.  Hengeler Mueller advised Lhoist on the transaction.

Travers Smith LLP has advised Pulsant, the cloud computing, managed hosting and colocation expert, on the acquisition of the IT consultancy business of Spinnaker Red.

Travers Smith has a long-standing relationship with Pulsant, having previously advised it on the acquisitions of Lumison, BlueSquare, DediPower and Scolocate. The firm also advised the shareholders of Pulsant in relation to the sale of Pulsant to, and their re-investment along-side, Oak Hill Capital Partners and Scottish Equity Partners in July 2014.

Osborne Clarke advised financial services provider FWU AG on the acquisition of Skandia Austria, with its insurance portfolio of 82,000 contracts and assets under management of EUR 1.4 billion, from the Heidelberger Life Group. The transaction requires the approval of the relevant authorities.

DLA Piper has advised the British company ASE plc on the acquisition of 100% of the shares in Austrian Edentity Software Solutions GmbH, an IT company specialising in used car management and dealer-benchmarking. The transaction team was led from the firm's Vienna office by partner Christian Temmel (Corporate) and included partners Franz Althuber (Tax), Stephan Nitzl (Employment), Sabine Fehringer (IT) and senior associate Suzy Park (Corporate).

International Retail Corporation SA, Givisiez (IRC) has acquired a majority stake in Transa Backpacking AG, Zurich, a leading Swiss supplier of Outdoor Equipment, from the founders and other shareholders. Globetrotter Holding AG remains second largest shareholder in Transa. IRC is owned by Beat Zaugg, co-shareholder of Scott Corporation SA, Givisiez.

Addleshaw Goddard's Manchester corporate team has advised Frenkel Topping, a leading provider of specialist independent financial advice on the investment of personal injury damages and clinical negligence awards, on its acquisition FC Fund Managers for £4.1m.

The acquisition of FC Fund Managers is an important move for fast-growing Frenkel.

The AG team was led by partner Roger Hart and included Oliver Hincks and Jo Cooper.

SOLID POWER GmbH, the German subsidiary of Italian fuel cell energy appliance manufacturer SOLID POWER S.p.A., acquired the business operations of Ceramic Fuel Cells GmbH, based in Heinsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, in the context of an international bidding procedure. Led by Hamburg-based partner Dr. Lothar Ende, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek comprehensively advised the client.

Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advised its long-standing client Reply also on its recent acquisition in Germany. Reply acquired 100 percent of the shares of Leadvise GmbH supported by the team led by Hamburg-based partner Dr. Lothar Ende.

Pari Mutuel Urbain (“PMU”), the leading European horserace betting operator, signed an agreement on the acquisition of the majority shareholding in German Tote Service- und Beteiligungs GmbH (“German Tote“) on 27 August 2015. German Tote, a German betting broker and marketer of horse races, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BGG Betriebsgesellschaft der Galopp-Rennvereine mbH.

Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Norwegian company Lindorff Group AB on the acquisition of 100 per cent of shares in Casus Finanse S.A., a Polish company which deals among other things with the management and collection of receivables.

Lindorff Group is known to be one of the leading players in the global market for debt collection. It employs approximately 2800 people in 12 countries.