Mayer Brown advised has Webhelp SAS on the acquisition of all shares of the Sellbytel Group.

The Webhelp Group is a portfolio company of the leading American investment company, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P (KKR). The seller is the global operating agency group, BBDO, which is based in New York. The transaction is still subject to the approval of antitrust authorities, and the parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

With the acquisition of the Sellbytel Group, Webhelp Group continues its expansion strategy, increasing its geographical presence in Europe. Following this acquisition, the Webhelp Group forecasts annual sales of € 1.3 billion at the end of 2018, with a team of 50,000 employees serving more than 500 customers worldwide.

Founded in 1988, the Sellbytel Group is a leading global provider of outsourcing services, with over 60 locations worldwide. Since 1994, the service provider has been part of the agency network BBDO Worldwide, which in turn is part of the listed Omnicom Group [OMC:US].

Webhelp SAS, a leading European provider of CRM - Business Process Outsourcing, is headquartered in Paris and was founded in 2000 by the French entrepreneurs Olivier Duha and Frederic Jousset.

The transaction, subject to German law, was managed in collaboration of the Frankfurt and Paris office and was led by Corporate & Securities partners Dr. Julian Lemor (Frankfurt) and Olivier Aubouin (Paris).

In addition to tax structuring and legal advice, Mayer Brown also coordinated the international aspects of the transaction in a multitude of jurisdictions, cooperating inter alia with the Spanish law firm Uría Menéndez.

Along with Lemor and Aubouin, the Mayer Brown team included Antitrust partner Nathalie Jalabert Doury (Paris), Corporate & Securities partner Birgit Hübscher-Alt (Frankfurt), Litigation & Dispute Resolution partners Dr. Jan Kraayvanger (Frankfurt) and Michael O. Ware (New York), and Tax Transactions & Consulting partners Volker Junge (Frankfurt) and Olivier Parawan (Paris); Corporate & Securities counsels Prof. Dr. Christoph Broich, Dr. Alexander Täumer, Dr. Malte Richter (all Frankfurt), Dr. Jan Streer (Düsseldorf), and Hadrien Schlumberger (Paris), IP counsel Konstantin von Werder, Real Estate counsel Dr. Philipp Schaefer, and Tax Transactions & Consulting counsel Susan Günther (all Frankfurt);and Corporate & Securities associates Dr. Michael Gläsner, Anna-Lena Haggeney, Tina Hoffmann, Florian Middelkamp (all Frankfurt), Dr. Stefan Glasmacher (Dusseldorf), and Renan Lombard-Platet (Paris), Employment & Benefits Group associates Jörg Salzmann and Pauline Moritz (both Frankfurt), IP associate Benjamin Beck (Frankfurt), Litigation & Dispute Resolution associate Armineh Gharibian (Frankfurt), and Tax Transactions & Consulting associate Alexandre Chagneau (Paris).

For the German team around Julian Lemor, who also leads the Corporate & Securities practice in Germany, this is another important step towards strengthening Mayer Brown’s Private Equity practice.