Freshfields and Slaughter and May are among a raft of firms advising on Deutsche Börse’s planned €5.3bn acquisition of Allfunds, a wealthtech platform that is listed on Euronext Amsterdam.
Freshfields is leading for Allfunds with a cross-border team comprising 12 partners, including three London M&A partners: Nick Jones, Stephen Hewes and Michael Black.
Antitrust advice is being led by Uta Itzen, Andreas von Bonin and Jenny Leahy, who are based in Düsseldorf, Brussels and London respectively. David Franco in Madrid and Cyrus Pocha in London are advising on financial regulation, with London partners Alice Greenwell and Martin Hutchings handling employment and finance matters.
Christoph Seibt, who co-heads the firm’s global listed companies/public M&A group, and Hanneke Rothbarth, who heads the corporate and finance teams in Amsterdam and is global co-head of M&A, are leading on German and Dutch law matters respectively.
On the other side, Slaughters is one of several firms advising Deutsche Börse, the German multinational corporation which operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Corporate and M&A partners Jack Wharton and Harry Hecht are leading the magic circle firm’s team, which is advising on English law aspects of the deal.
Elite German firm Hengeler Mueller, which regularly collaborates with Slaughters, is advising on German law. LB understands the firm’s team is led by corporate partners Daniel Möritz and Lucina Berger.
Benelux firm NautaDutilh is handling Dutch law aspects, while Spain’s Garrigues and US firm Covington & Burling are advising on specific regulatory matters. Covington’s team is understood to be being led by Brussels partner Johan Ysewyn, who co-chairs the firm’s global competition and antitrust practice.
The role for Freshfields comes after it acted for US private equity house Hellman & Friedman on the €1.8bn acquisition of Allfunds in 2017, alongside GIC.
In 2021, the firm advised Hellman on Allfund’s listing on Euronext Amsterdam, a matter that Jones, Pocha, Franco and Rothbarth also acted on.
Cleary Gottlieb are advising BNP Paribas which acquired a 22.5% stake in Allfunds in 2020. London-based M&A and private equity partner Chris Gollop is leading the team which includes fellow London colleagues Paul Gilbert, who specialises on competition law, PE regulatory partner Ferdisha Snagg, and Michael James who co-leads the firm’s sponsor solution group.
