A Bryan Cave M&A and private equity team, led by Frankfurt Office Managing Partner Tobias Fenck, recently advised a former material stakeholder of IntelliShop AG in the course of a management buyout by investment firm IMCap GmbH. IMCap now owns the majority stake in IntelliShop AG, the leading producer of software solutions for B2B eCommerce. The parties involved have agreed to not disclose any information on the purchase price or further terms of the transaction.

Baker McKenzie advised the South African Sappi Group, one of the world's leading pulp and paper manufacturers, on the acquisition of Cham Paper Group's specialty paper business. The sale comprises an enterprise value of CHF 146.5 million. Shortly before Christmas, the transaction received antitrust approval in Germany. Approval in Austria was obtained today.

Lawyers of Clifford Chance's Prague office have advised European Investment Bank (EIB) on its up to EUR 50m equity investment into Inven Capital, an internally managed, qualified-investor, Czech SICAV fund, fully-owned by the regional energy group CEZ, to support the growth of clean energy and smart technology SMEs and midcaps.

Eversheds Sutherland has advised new client TDKP Limited (Moneypenny) on its acquisition of Made Simple Group (Made Simple).

Moneypenny is the world's leading provider of telephone answering, outsourced switchboard, Live Chat and customer contact solutions.

Made Simple is home to a range of products dedicated to providing online solutions to the start-up and small business communities, such as company formation, virtual offices, website creation and most recently a co-working space in central London. 

DLA Piper has advised Laureate Education (NASDAQ:LAUR), the world’s largest global network of higher education institutions, on the sale of its global network institution in Malaysia -INTI University and Colleges (INTI)- to Affinity Equity Partners (Affinity), one of the largest independent private equity firms in the Asia Pacific region, for a total transaction value of US$180 million. The net transaction value to Laureate under the Agreement will be US$162 million.

Linklaters has advised a consortium of banks on the financing of the acquisition of Paysafe Group Plc by Blackstone and CVC. Paysafe is a leading global online payments services company serving more than 125,000 merchants in over 100 countries and this transaction is one of the largest public-to-private takeovers of the year and one of the top 10 largest European LBO's of 2017.
 

International legal practice Osborne Clarke has advised Oxford PV Germany GmbH on an European Investment Bank (EIB) financing of €15m. Oxford PV Germany GmbH is a subsidiary of Oxford Photovoltaics Limited, the leader in the field of perovskite solar cells. The financing supports the transfer of its disruptive perovskite on silicon tandem solar cell technology from lab scale to commercialisation.

International law firm Taylor Wessing has represented one of the investors in a USD 270 million Series A round of financing of BioNTech AG, a fully-integrated biotechnology company pioneering individualized cancer immunotherapy.

Legal advisors

Taylor Wessing: Dr. Norman Röchert and Marc-Oliver Kurth (Lead Partner, Partners, Berlin), Maria Weiers (Partner, Düsseldorf), Dr. Sebastian Beyer (Salary Partner, Frankfurt), Dr. Sebastian Klabunde (Senior Associate), Christian Ahrendt (Associate, both Berlin) (all Corporate, M&A an Capital Markets)

DWF has advised Keywords Studios on its $27 million acquisition of Sperasoft Inc and Sperasoft Studio LLC, a strategic purchase that will enable the global games provider to continue its growth plans.

Addleshaw Goddard is advising Sheffield-based Sumo Group plc on its £145m IPO, which was announced today and will be effective on 21 December.

The deal is 100th company floatation of 2017 and breaks the century barrier for the London Stock Exchange for the first time in three years.