Eversheds Sutherland has advised new client Best Dressed Group Limited on its strategic investment into Jigsaw, a UK premium high street brand.

Jigsaw, the iconic UK fashion brand founded by John Robinson and Malcolm Webster in 1972, currently trades from more than 80 stand-alone stores in the UK with concessions in John Lewis, Fenwick and House of Fraser. International locations include owned businesses in the USA and Australia, and concessions including Arnotts, Dublin, and Robinsons, Singapore.

Baker McKenzie advised funds managed by First State Investments and Hermes Investment Management on the acquisition of ferry operator Scandlines from 3i Group and funds managed by 3i for an equity value of EUR 1.7 billion. 3i has separately agreed to reinvest into Scandlines at the same transaction value to become a 35% shareholder alongside First State Investments (50.1%) and Hermes Investment Management (14.9%). The deal signed on Monday is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018, subject to obtaining regulatory approvals.

The acquisition was the largest publicly announced M&A deal in the Philippines in 2017, and one of the largest power deals to date in the country.

Ashurst is advising Bank of America Merrill Lynch in relation to the £53 million recommended cash takeover of FreeAgent Holdings plc by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS Group).

FreeAgent is a provider of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service accounting software solutions and mobile applications designed specifically for UK micro-businesses (defined as sole traders and companies with fewer than 10 employees) and their accountants. RBS Group and FreeAgent have an existing commercial partnership, which, following a successful pilot, has seen expanding customer numbers.

Bremer Kreditbank AG (BKB) acquires Wustenrot Bank AG Pfandbriefbank from Wustenrot & Wurttembergische AG (W & W). The international law firm Clifford Chance has once again given BKB legal advice on the acquisition and drafting of an extensive sales cooperation agreement with W & W.
Thanks to the agreed comprehensive cooperation, financial products will in future be supplied reciprocally and the sales power of both banks will be further increased. The Wustenrot Bank, with around 110 jobs, has a balance sheet total of currently around 1.5 billion euros.

Union Investment Real Estate announced the acquisition, on behalf of its open-ended institutional fund UniInstitutional European Real Estate, of the Euro Alsace office building, located in the 10th district of Paris. The building was acquired from Commerz Real, which had owned it since 2007 through its closed-ended fund CFB 165.
Built at the end of the 19th century and renovated in 2007, the Euro Alsace building has a surface area of 16,000 m² spread over six floors. It is leased in full to SNCF.

Travers Smith LLP has advised existing client Eggplant, formerly Testplant, on its acquisition of the NCC Group's Web Performance Division. Eggplant, a portfolio company of The Carlyle Group, is a leading international provider of digital automation intelligence solutions.

Travers Smith LLP has advised longstanding client Phoenix Equity Partners (Phoenix) on its acquisition of Capital Economics Research Limited (Capital Economics) from sellers including LDC and the existing Capital Economics management team in a transaction valuing Capital Economics at circa £95 million.

Charles Russell Speechlys have advised new client Apposite Capital, the private equity firm with an exclusive focus on healthcare, on the acquisition of OrthoD Group from The Riverside Company.
 

DLA Piper represented Lux Capital in its recent investment in Arraiy, Inc., a computer vision and machine learning platform for special effects. Lux Capital led Arraiy's US$10 million Series A financing together with SoftBank Ventures. Dentsu Ventures, Cherry Tree Investments, IDG Capital and CRCM Ventures also participated in the round. Lux partner, Shahin Farshchi, joined Arraiy's Board as part of the financing.