FRESHFIELDS AND LATHAM ADVISE ON BARCLAYS SPIN OFF
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Latham & Watkins have acted on the spin-off of Barclays’ natural resources private equity arm in a management buyout. Barclays Natural Resources Investments was purchased by its managers after being placed into Barclays’ non-core asset pile following a restructuring last year. Freshfields acted for Barclays, while Latham advised management.
GLOBAL FIRMS SCORE WITH CANDY CRUSH DEAL
Debevoise & Plimpton and Allen & Overy (A&O) advised on the $5.9bn sale of Candy Crush creator King Digital Entertainment to Activision Blizzard. Debevoise was lead M&A counsel for King Digital alongside Fenwick & West and William Fry, while A&O acted for Activision Blizzard alongside Mason Hayes & Curran.
PFIZER/ALLERGAN DEAL MAKES HISTORY
In what is the largest pharmaceutical deal in history, Viagra-owner Pfizer’s agreed $160bn takeover of Botox-maker Allergan, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; and A&L Goodbody are acting as Pfizer’s legal advisers. Allergan, meanwhile, turned to Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Latham & Watkins and Arthur Cox. On the antitrust side, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius is lead antitrust counsel to Pfizer opposite Weil, Gotshal & Manges for Allergan, while Clifford Chance is advising Pfizer on all merger control aspects outside the US and Canada.
Debevoise & Plimpton represented Guggenheim Securities and Goldman Sachs, financial advisers to Pfizer.
The combined company will be the world’s biggest drug maker by sales.
