Established private equity players Latham & Watkins, Ropes & Gray and Travers Smith have won roles on Pure Gym’s sale from CCMP Capital to Leonard Green, while Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Morgan Lewis also picked up significant mandates this week.
The Pure Gym deal, announced today (3 November), is valued at £600m according to media reports, and follows Leonard Green’s £2.4bn acquisition of CPA Global earlier this year.
Latham is advising US PE firm Leonard Green on the deal, with London-based corporate partners Kem Ihenacho and Farah O’Brien and New York-based Howard Sobel leading on the buyout side. London head Jayanthi Sadanandan and partner Jocelyn Seitzman are leading for the firm on the financing aspects.
Phillip Sanderson is spearheading Ropes’ team advising Pure Gym, alongside tax partner Brenda Coleman. Sanderson’s former firm Travers Smith is acting for Pure Gym’s management team, with private equity partner Edmund Reed leading with tax partner Hannah Manning.
Meanwhile, Freshfields has advised CVC Capital Partners on two large PE deals: the acquisition of TMF Group and the sale of Paroc Group.
The Freshfields team advising on the buyout of business and compliance services outsourcer TMF was led by corporate partners Shawn der Kinderen and Charles Hayes, while European leveraged finance co-head Alex Mitchell advised on the financing side. On the sale of insulation appliance manufacturer Paroc, Freshfields’ team was led by corporate partner Tim Wilmot.
Elsewhere, Morgan Lewis has advised investment trust company Pantheon International in a reorganisation of its share capital for an aggregate consideration of £200m.
The firm’s team was led by veteran partner Simon Currie alongside fellow partners Iain Wright, Bruce Johnston, Kate Habershon, Richard Zarin, David Sirignano and Peter Phleger.
Currie has acted for Pantheon since 1990 when he was at Theodore Goddard. He then took Pantheon to Covington & Burling in 2002 and expanded Morgan Lewis’ existing relationship with Pantheon when he joined the firm in 2015.
