Kirkland & Ellis advises FNZ Group on the acquisition of European Bank for Financial Services GmbH (ebase) from comdirect bank AG. The transaction is still subject to the approval by the banking supervisory and antitrust authorities.

ebase is a wholly owned subsidiary of comdirect bank AG since 2009 and provides financial services with a focus on B2B direct banking. Based in Aschheim near Munich, ebase employs 265 staff and manages client assets of around EUR 31 billion.

International law firm Proskauer advised Apiary Capital on its debut fundraising, which closed at its hard cap of £200 million.

Apiary Capital, founded by Mark Salter with partners Nikola Sutherland, Nicki Boyd and Rob Simpson will focus on private equity investments in the business services, education and health care sectors in the UK lower-middle market. The debut fund, which achieved its hard cap, was launched in late 2017 and raised capital from a highly regarded institutional investor base across Europe and the U.S.

Simpson Thacher is representing Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. in connection with an amendment to its committed bridge facilities to increase the aggregate principal amount of the facilities to £15.325 billion to finance its increased offer for the acquisition of Sky plc, the U.K.-based media company. Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC, Deutsche Bank AG Cayman Islands Branch and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., London Branch have committed to provide the bridge facilities.

Squire Patton Boggs has advised EDF Renewables in relation to the sale of a 49% minority stake in 24 of its UK wind farms (c.550 MW). The cash proceeds to EDF at close for the 49% stake were £701 million.

The new partnership with Dalmore Capital Limited and Pensions Infrastructure Platform, with investment from large UK local authority pension schemes, will enable EDF Renewables to continue to develop further renewables energy.

Leading business law firm Mason Hayes & Curran has announced the appointment of Brian McElligott as a partner in their Intellectual Property team.

Linklaters has hired Shilpa Bhandarkar as the Head of Innovation. In this newly created role, she will lead a central team based out of the firm’s Innovation Lab in London and will supervise the Linklaters’ Innovation & Efficiency programme, working with partners and business teams alike to champion innovation across the firm.

King & Spalding has added Laurent Bensaid and Laurent Jaeger as partners in its Paris office. Bensaid joins the firm’s Corporate, Finance & Investments practice group to serve as an anchor of the EMEA corporate team in Paris, working with colleagues on transactions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Jaeger is an international arbitration and litigation expert who joins the firm’s Trial & Global Disputes practice group to bolster the firm’s commercial arbitration bench.

Dentons is pleased to announce that Kirsten Thompson has joined the Firm as a partner in our Privacy and Cybersecurity group in Toronto. Kirsten will also be the national lead in a newly-formed Transformative Technologies and Data Strategy group.

Hogan Lovells has announced that leading privacy lawyer Nicola Fulford will be joining the firm as a Partner in the Privacy and Cybersecurity practice, and will be based in the London Office. Nicola will be joining the firm from Kemp Little, where she headed up the Data Protection & Privacy practice.

Hogan Lovells' Privacy and Cybersecurity practice is widely regarded as one of the world's leading teams in this increasingly business-critical area.

Clayton Utz is delighted to announce that Andrew Steele has joined the firm as a partner in its national Real Estate practice group, based in Sydney.