Clifford Chance has advised LV= on its agreement with Teachers Provident Society, which trades as Teachers Assurance, to take over the majority of its business interests. The transaction is subject to regulatory and Teachers Assurance member approval.

LV= is the UK’s largest friendly society and a leading insurance company. LV= manages £10.3 billion of assets on behalf of its members and policyholders and offers a range of investment, insurance and retirement products.

Slaughter and May is advising Shire plc in relation to English law aspects of its acquisition of NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a US rare disease-focused biopharmaceutical company.

The acquisition is structured as an all-cash tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of NPS Pharma at a price that values NPS Pharma at approximately US$5.2 billion. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2015.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised European private equity firm Cinven on its acquisition of Premium Credit Limited, the UK specialty finance provider, for an enterprise value of £462m.

Premium Credit provides financing for the payment of annual fees such as professional fees, membership subscriptions, commercial service charges and school fees. In 2013, the Company achieved gross advances of £3.7 billion, processing 25.8 million transactions. Premium Credit has approximately 2 million customers and works with 4,000 intermediaries.

Vinge has advised Platzer Fastigheter in connection with the acquisition of Gamlestadens Resecentumutveckling AB from Serneke Group. The parties will jointly develop Gamlestadens Resecentumutveckling in project form and the facility will have an area of 17,000 sq.m. Platezer will be the owner and will be responsible for letting and management whereas Serneke will be responsible for the turnkey construction project. The project is valued at SEK 450 million and is part of the West Sweden (Infrastructure) Package.

Vinge has advised Ravensburger AG in conjunction with the acquisition of Brio AB from Proventus. Ravensurger is a German toy company which was founded in 1883. The Swedish toy company, Brio was founded in 1884.

Vinge’s team consisted of partners Mikael Vigge and Karin Grauers together with associates Ulrich Ziche, Fredrik Gustafsson, Sara Strandberg, Carolina Walther, David Henningsson, Frida Lindlof and Anton Dahllof.

Charles Russell Speechlys has acted as the legal adviser to SMS Systems Maintenance Services Inc,. on its acquisition of Prob-Solve Group Limited, a leading independent provider of managed IT support and solutions across the UK. 

Hogan Lovells has advised Dun & Bradstreet, a leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, on its acquisition of NetProspex, a Massachusetts-based company and leader in B2B professional contact data and data management. The transaction, which closed on 5 January 2015, was valued at US$125 million net of cash assumed.

Swissgrid has acquired further parts of the Swiss transmission grid, including the transmission grid company of the city of Zurich. This marks another significant milestone in the history of the Swiss electricity industry. Swissgrid and the previous owners of the transmission grid started the complex process of transferring the grid in 2009.

Ashurst has advised pan-European private equity firm Agilitas on the acquisition of a majority stake in the Ionisos Group, alongside the management, from Naxicap partners.

Ionisos is one of the three largest European sterilisation services providers and the only company in France to offer all three cold sterilisation technologies: gamma rays, beta rays and ethylene oxide.

Royal IHC has acquired SAS Offshore, which is based in Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands. SAS Offshore is specialised in designing and manufacturing high quality deck equipment for the offshore oil and gas market.  This acquisition enables IHC to further secure its position as a supplier of reliable integrated offshore systems and integrated vessels in this sector.