Deal represents one of the largest UK buyouts of 2017.
The Board of The Nature’s Bounty Co. and The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) have announced that L1 Retail, the retail investment arm of LetterOne, has agreed to purchase Holland & Barrett for £1.77 billion. The transaction is expected to close by September 2017 subject to customary regulatory approvals.
Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised the shareholders of Floduval SA on the sale of all its shares to Methode.
Floduval is the holding company of Procoplast SA, a Belgium-based independent manufacturer of automotive assemblies. Its brand new facility includes automated assembly equipment, injection molding and testing equipment. Procoplast produces high volume products for Bosch, Kiekert, ZF-TRW and others, which will augment Methode's transmission leadframe business.
Miltenyi Biotec, a global provider of products and services that advance biomedical research and cellular therapy, acquired Sensoation AG, Radolfzell, a quality supplier of scientific imaging instrumentation backed, among others, by private equity fund Heidelberg Capital. Sensovation AG specialises in the development and production of scientific imaging and low light detection using CCD and CMOS technology primarily used in Life Science applications.
Baloise acquires Movu, Switzerland’s biggest digital platform for home-moving services. The transaction is subject to the approval of the regulator and will be completed in the next weeks.
Walder Wyss has acted as advisor to the selling founders and financial investors in all legal aspects of the transaction. The team was led by Florian Gunz Niedermann (Partners, Corporate/M&A) and further included Fabienne Anner, Samuel Lieberherr and Christian Lütolf (Associates/M&A), Michael Isler (Partner, IP/IT) and Maurus Winzap (Partner, Tax).
The founder and former investors of the Berlin online travel portal eWings.com sold the company to the British business travel provider Hogg Robinson Group (HRG). Among others, former investors included early-stage investor High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised Gardner Aerospace Holdings Limited (“Gardner Aerospace”), a UK-based manufacturer of aerospace components, on the sale of its business to Chinese industrial group Shaanxi Ligeance Mineral Resources (“SLMR”) for £326m.
Owned by UK investment fund Better Capital, Gardner Aerospace specialises in the manufacture of complex metal components and has production sites in Poland, the UK and India as well as France. It is one of Airbus’ main suppliers.
A cross border, cross practice-team at Bird & Bird has advised Capgemini in relation to its divestment of IBX Business Network to Tradeshift. Through the transaction IBX and Tradeshift create the world's largest business commerce platform, connecting in total almost 1,5 million companies and more than 500 global business customers.
DLA Piper represented RetailMeNot, Inc., a leading savings destination, in its completed tender-offer acquisition by Harland Clarke Holdings Corp., a best-in-class provider of integrated payment solutions and marketing services for $630 million.
The RetailMeNot, Inc. portfolio of websites and mobile applications in the transaction included RetailMeNot.com in the United States; RetailMeNot.ca in Canada; VoucherCodes.co.uk in the United Kingdom; ma-reduc.com and Poulpeo.com in France; and GiftCardZen.com and Deals2Buy.com in North America.
Shearman & Sterling advised Allianz on the sale of its majority stake of approximately 90 percent in German listed Oldenburgische Landesbank ("OLB") to Bremer Kreditbank. The remaining shares are held by private investors and employees, to whom BKB will make a voluntary takeover offer. Closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory clearance.
Vinge assisted EQT V Limited (”EQT”) in connection with the sale of shares in AcadeMedia AB (publ) (”AcadeMedia”) through an accelerated bookbuilding process carried out on 19 June 2017. In total, 15 million shares were placed at a price of SEK 57 per share, corresponding to a total value of SEK 855 million. Following the transaction, EQT holds approximately 25.4% of the shares in AcadeMedia.
Vinge’s team consisted of Dain Hård Nevonen and Sofie Bjärtun.