Linklaters advised Osram Licht AG on the sale of the general lighting lamps business “Ledvance”. The buyer is a Chinese consortium consisting of the strategic investor IDG Capital Partners (IDG), the Chinese lighting company MLS Co., Ltd. (MLS) and the financial investor Yiwu State-Owned Assets Operation Center (Yiwu). The transaction results in a significantly larger sales and distribution network for both companies and leads to synergies in procurement. For Osram, this sale is a further important step in the strategic repositioning towards becoming a high-tech company.

Closing of the transaction is expected in the course of the fiscal year 2017. It is subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

A Linklaters team led by Dr Florian Harder (Corporate, Munich) advised on the transaction. The team also included Dr Markus Appel (Public Law, Berlin), Andreas Schaflitzl (Tax, Munich), Dr Carsten Grave (Competition/Antitrust, Düsseldorf), Jan Rudolph (Employment, Munich), Dr Konrad Berger (TMT, Munich), Richard Gu (Corporate, Shanghai), Annika Juds (Employment, Munich), Martina Farkas, Dr Christoph Rödter (both Corporate, Munich), Dorthe Mager (Tax, Munich), Christoph Barth (Competition/Antitrust, Düsseldorf) Derek Wang, Junjie Li, Eric Cheng, Hansen Ji (all associates, Corporate, Shanghai), Dr Katrin Laschewski (Tax, Munich), Tommy Chen (IP, London) and Arthur Rohmer (Corporate, Paris).