Baker McKenzie has advised the Franco-Irish telecom operator, BSO Networks, in the context of its acquisition of Apsara Networks, an American operator specialising in ultra-low latency telecommunications. This type of telecommunication is used by the main American financial centres (NYSE, NASDAQ and CBOT) for high-frequency trading.
 
By integrating Apsara’s wireless technology into its fibre-optics network, BSO consolidates its position as one of the leading operators used by traders. 

Stuttgart - Atlas Copco, a leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions with an annual turnover of approximately 10.6 billion euros in 2016, has agreed to divest its concrete and compaction business to Husqvarna Group’s Construction division.

Hamburg – The Grenzebach Group has sold Ventech Systems GmbH to Goodyear and LJU Automatisierungstechnik GmbH to Conductix-Wampfler GmbH. CMS advised the Grenzebach Group on both transactions via two teams headed by M&A specialists Dr Hilke Herchen and Dr Jacob Siebert.

Hamburg – The Grenzebach Group has sold Ventech Systems GmbH to Goodyear and LJU Automatisierungstechnik GmbH to Conductix-Wampfler GmbH. CMS advised the Grenzebach Group on both transactions via two teams headed by M&A specialists Dr Hilke Herchen and Dr Jacob Siebert.

Baker McKenzie has assisted Caterpillar Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary Progress Rail, in the acquisition of ECM S.p.A specialized in the technologies for rail signaling.

Baker McKenzie assisted Caterpillar with a team led by partner Alberto Semeria and  with the assistance of associates Anna Marina De Vivo, Arianna Ferri and Mario Cigno.

The Africa team of CMS Francis Lefebvre Avocats advised the NSIA group, a major player in insurance in Sub-Saharan Africa (around 20 life and non-life subsidiaries in more than a dozen African countries) as well as in banking (two banking subsidiaries in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea), on the takeover of Diamond Bank SA, the Beninese banking subsidiary of the Nigerian Diamond Bank Plc group and its three banks in Senegal, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire (with total assets of more than €600 million).

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.

Baker Botts L.L.P., a leading international law firm, announced today that it represented Upside Energy (“Upside”) in Series A investment by SYSTEMIQ, Legal & General and Modern Energy.

Upside is a Manchester-based company that has developed a cloud platform that uses advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to coordinate connected devices to deliver valuable flexibility services to the energy system.

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.

A Bryan Cave M&A and private equity team, led by Frankfurt Office Managing Partner Tobias Fenck, recently advised a majority shareholder of JobRouter AG, headquartered in Mannheim, Germany, on the sale of a majority participation to the private equity company Main Capital. The new investor provides the company new growth capital. The goal of the investment is the development of the business model for BPM and document management, international expansion as well as strategic add-on acquisitions.