Mergers and Acquisitions

This practice area includes: takeovers and tender offers, whether hostile, contested, or agreed; private company acquisitions and disposals (domestic and multi-jurisdictional); leveraged buy-outs; joint ventures; equity investments; and privatizations. We handle multi-jurisdictional work that combines money centre experience and local market expertise, using foreign country due diligence, and ensuring that there is regulatory approval from competition authorities.

With joint ventures, we advise clients who may be venturing outside one jurisdiction and into another – a move that is complicated by differences in the law with which they are familiar, and the law of the new jurisdiction.

Acquisition and divestiture of state-owned entities: we advise on privatization of formerly state-owned entities, and represent selling shareholders and acquirers in these transactions. We advise on the implementation of the divestiture transaction through public offerings of equity in the privatized company, or a negotiated divestiture to strategic investors. We also counsel strategic and financial investors in newly-privatised entities, and represent financial institutions which are involved in privatization transactions as financial advisors, lenders, arrangers, underwriters, or investors. Other privatization practice areas are the drafting of the necessary legislation, establishment of a regulatory framework, and restructuring of state-owned enterprises and industries.