Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier advised Casino on the sale of Big C Vietnam for an enterprise value of € 1 billion[1] to Central Group, one of the main family-owned conglomerates in Thailand with interests in real estate, department stores, retailing, hospitality and restaurants.

Big C Vietnam is a leading food retailer in Vietnam, operating a network of 43 stores and 30 shopping malls, with a turnover excluding taxes of €586 million in 2015.

Eversheds advised the majority owners (including PEQ Invest II AB) in the sale of ILT Group AB to Priveq. The ILT-group provides educational material for students with cognitive disabilities and study tutorials for immigrant students.

The Eversheds transaction team was lead by Ulrika Sparrman (responsible partner) and Caroline Wikström (principal associate).

The Frankfurt and Munich offices of Weil advised the shareholders of the sports betting group Tipico in the sale of a majority stake to private equity investor CVC Capital Partners. The current owners of Tipico will retain an interest of 40% in the company.  Tipico is Germany's market leader in sports betting and online casino games and an important sponsor of "Bundesliga" soccer clubs such as FC Bayern München and Hamburger SV.

DLA Piper represented Hackbright Academy, a software engineering school for women, in its US$18 million sale to the Capella Education Company.

Under the terms of the deal, Hackbright will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Capella and maintain its current headquarters and management team based in San Francisco.

The Silicon Valley-based DLA Piper team representing Hackbright was led by partner Tom Furlong and counsel Debra Vernon.

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised Guardiola Invest SA on the transfer of its control in Azurtis SA to J&J Group SA, a company incorporated by Cédric Galoux-Wittevrouw, the founder of Azurtis.

The signing took place on April 19, 2016 and the transaction closed on April 20, 2016 in Brussels. Azurtis is a Belgian company which designs and creates complete lines of scented products and cosmetics. Guardiola is a private investment vehicle managed by Jacques-Martin Philippson and Marc van Doornick.

Sidley advised TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P. on the sale of a majority stake in Van Geloven B.V., suppliers of a full range of frozen convenience foods, to international frozen foods leader McCain. TowerBrook will remain a shareholder in the business and will continue to support Van Geloven in its expansion plans. The London based Sidley team was led by Private Equity partners Erik Dahl, Christian Iwasko and Sava Savov with support from associates Michelle Tong, Garrett Holmes and Priya Rupal.

Norton Rose Fulbright has advised specialist European financial services private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners (AnaCap) on the sale of UK online insurance distributor Simply Business, to New York-based Aquiline Capital Partners.

Completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of the Financial Conduct Authority.

The exit comes just short of three years since AnaCap acquired Simply Business and will generate a return of 4.5 times its original investment.

We are acting as the sole legal advisor to Rettig Group in its divestment of Bore to Spliethoff Bevrachtingskantoor in an all-cash deal expected to close on 30 June 2016. Bore is a shipping company with a fleet of nine Roll-on/Roll-off vessels chartered to line operators that transport cargo in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and the Carribean.

The Spliethoff group operates a fleet of over 100 vessels worldwide. Finnish Roll-on/Roll-off line operator Transfennica has been part of the Spliethoff Group since 2002.

Charles Russell Speechlys has advised Panagiotis Dimitropoulos, founder and Chief Executive Officer of InternetQ plc, on the recommended takeover offer for InternetQ plc by a consortium comprised of Mr Dimitropoulos, multi asset manager Toscafund Asset Management LLP and private equity house Penta Capital LLP. The offer valued InternetQ plc at approximately £72 million (as at 1 March 2016, the date of announcement of the offer) and went unconditional in all respects on 21 March 2016.

Eversheds has advised Starbucks on the sale of all partnership interests in Starbucks Coffee Deutschland, the German subsidiary of Starbucks, to AmRest of Poland.

 The purchase agreement which is expected to take effect on 23 May 2016 will result in AmRest acquiring the existing 144 equity stores and having the license to operate and develop the Starbucks brand in Germany.