Ashurst advised 2L-Invest SA, a company of the Cerberus Capital Management (Cerberus)-group, on the sale of its long-term leasehold rights on the building Place de Louvain 12 to a Luxembourg real estate investor. The 19th century style office building is located in the heart of Brussels and offers a general leasable area of approximately 3,000 square meters and is fully let to the Flemish Community. The real estate investor acquired the long-term lease right through an asset sale.

Fried Frank acted as counsel to VIAVI Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAV) in its definitive agreement to acquire the Test and Measurement business of Cobham plc (LSE: COB) for US$455 million. This transaction will significantly strengthen VIAVI's competitive position in 5G deployment and diversify the company into military, public safety and avionics test markets. The acquisition has been approved by the Board of Directors of each company and is expected to close during the second half of VIAVI's fiscal year 2018, subject to customary closing conditions. VIAVI Solutions Inc.

DLA Piper represented Oxford Properties Group in a joint venture with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in the acquisition of a portion of New York City's historic St. John's Terminal site south of West Houston Street from Westbrook Partners and Atlas Capital Group for US$700 million.

EDF LNG Shipping, a subsidiary of EDF group, signed a long term charter contract with the Japanese shipowner NYK on January 26th 2018. The vessel, with a capacity of 174,000 cbm, will be built by the shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries with delivery expected by spring 2020.

Ince & Co supported EDF LNG Shipping in the negotiation and drafting of the time charter contract providing for an initial charter period of seven years which can be further extended to twenty years.

International law firm Pinsent Masons has advised Cargill on its joint venture with Faccenda to create Avara Foods.

Avara Foods will combine Cargill’s fresh chicken business in the UK and Faccenda’s fresh chicken, turkey and duck business.

The new joint venture follows Competition and Market Authority (CMA) approval in December and will be a 50/50 shared ownership between Cargill and Faccenda. It will employ 6,000 people in a fully integrated supply chain.

Slaughter and May advised PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP) and PTTEPI International Limited (PTTEPI) in relation to the conditional acquisition of a 22.2222 per cent. stake in the Bongkot Project from Shell Integrated Gas Thailand Pte Limited and Thai Energy Company Limited (both Shell subsidiaries).  The transaction value, before tax, is approximately USD750 million.  The Bongkot Project, consisting of Blocks B15, B16, B17 and G12/48, is a natural gas field in the Gulf of Thailand operated by PTTEP.

Slaughter and May is advising Wing Tai Properties Limited (Wing Tai Properties) on the sale of the entire issued share capital of Allied Effort Limited (Allied Effort), an investment holding company that indirectly holds the “W Square” property in Wanchai, Hong Kong.  On 2 February 2018, Wing Tai Properties announced that its wholly owned subsidiary had entered into a binding agreement with Top Sincerity Limited and Winland Group Limited in respect of the sale for a consideration of HK$2,848,800,000, subject to price adjustments.  The sale is a “major transaction

De Brauw has acted as Counsel to ING Bank in the acquisition of 75% stake in Payvision.

Client name
ING Bank N.V.
 
Other parties involved
Payvision Holding B.V., Founding management.
 
Nature of transaction
ING has reached agreement to acquire a 75% stake in Payvision, an international omnichannel payments service provider, valued at EUR 360 million. The founding management of Payvision will hold a 25% minority stake and will continue to lead the company. The acquisition allows ING to further invest in the payments business.

De Brauw has advised Parkmobile in the sale of their interest to co-shareholder BMW Group.

Client name
Walvis Group.

Other parties involved
BMW Group, Parkmobile International, BCD, Bluefield Investments, Fontinalis Partners, Urban Mobility.

Nature of transaction

Paul, Weiss is representing Xerox Corporation in its combination with Fuji Xerox, its longstanding joint venture with FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation. The combined company will be a global leader in innovative print technologies and intelligent work solutions, with annual revenues of $18 billion and leadership positions in key geographic regions.