Hannes Snellman advises Certeum Corporation and its Board of Directors in relation to the sale of shares representing 57.5% of all shares in Certeum, between Sponda Plc and Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company (as sellers) and Tungsten Investment S.à.r.l. (as purchaser), a company affiliated to Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe IV.

The Hannes Snellman team consisted of Tuire Kuronen and Ville Kivikoski.

We have acted for private equity funds Altor and Bain Capital in their sale of the Norwegian fish feed producer EWOS to Cargill for 1.35 billion euro.

In connection with the transaction, Cargill has acquired seven manufacturing facilities, three in Norway, and another 4 in Chile, Canada, Scotland and Vietnam respectively. They also acquire two R&D centres in Norway and Chile.

The transaction was closed 8 October 2015.

It was announced on 14 October 2015 that E.ON has signed an agreement with DEA Norge AS regarding the sale of all issued and outstanding shares in E.ON E&P Norge AS. The transaction is the largest one on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 2015.

Arntzen de Besche has assisted Shell in the sale of their downstream business in Norawy. The transaction was completed 1th October 2015.

Ashurt has advised Australia and New Zealand Banking group Limited (ANZ) on the sale of its Esanda dealer finance portfolio, for a purchase price of approximately A$8.23 billion.

The transaction, signed and announced to ASX on 8 October 2015, was via a trade sale with expected completion staggered over six months.
The Esanda business comprises approx 330,000 retail customers and 450 dealer originators and 160 dealers with bailment and lending facilities with ANZ.

DLA Piper advised Amzak Capital Management in the sale of its portfolio company KPAQ Industries, LLC to Hood Container Corporation.

KPAQ, which Amzak acquired in 2010 out of bankruptcy proceedings, operates a containerboard and craft paper mill in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Amzak is a private investment firm owned by the Kazma family. Amzak’s current portfolio is comprised primarily of direct equity investments, fixed income securities, and real estate projects.

Following the sale of various divisions, the Canadian GLV Inc. has been renamed Ovivo and is now a company entirely dedicated to providing water treatment products and solutions. Ovivo Inc. is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In this context, CHSH advised Ovivo Inc. on a series of 3 different – though related – M&A-transactions, all of which could be successfully completed:

          * the sale of the Aqua Engineering business in the Eastern Europe Region to a UAE based company,

Ashurst is advising London-listed outsourcing company Xchanging plc on the takeover offers from UK's largest BPO firm Capita and US private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

Xchanging, which offers services ranging from back-office invoice processing to insurance claims settlement, received a revised cash offer of 160p per share from rival FTSE 100 firm Capita. Meanwhile Apollo also made a non-binding conditional proposal to acquire the company at 170 pence per share in cash.

Norton Rose Fulbright has advised BayernLB Capital Partner GmbH (BayernLB Capital Partner) and its managed funds as well as the company’s management in relation to the sale of Karlsruhe-based ISU Group Gmbh (ISU), a leading independent employment agency in Germany, to Belgian recruitment agency Actief Interim (Actief).

Actief is held by Dutch private equity fund Gilde Equity Management (Gilde). The Add-On acquisition was implemented as a secondary buy-out with reinvestment of the management of ISU in the new German holding Actief Holding Germany GmbH.

Law firm Eversheds has advised German bank, ProCredit Holding AG & Co. KGaA, on the sale of its banking operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Equity Group, the publicly quoted Kenyan bank.

The transaction completed on September 29, 2015 and involved the sale of the entire stake in the Bank held by ProCredit, Belgische Investeringsmaatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V. and Stichting DOEN to Equity Group.