Our Corporate/M&A practice
Our Corporate/M&A practice is a core practice of Niederer Kraft Frey. We rank top-tier in independent legal directories and our lawyers are regularly rated as leaders in their field.
In 2018, NKF received the Transatlantic M&A Team of the Year (Large Deal) Award by the American Lawyer. We have repeatedly contributed to major evolutions in Swiss corporate law in order to advance the interests of our clients. Among other things, for Actelion Ltd in its USD 30 billion takeover by Johnson & Johnson, NKF devised a dual deal structure consisting of the takeover and the demerger and spin-off to shareholders of Actelion’s drug discovery and early clinical development business which commentators described as a “quantum leap” in Pharma M&A.
We counsel both public and private companies, advising on a wide range of corporate matters, including:
- Domestic and international mergers and acquisitions
- Private Equity and Strategic Investments
- Public M&A and Contests for corporate Control
- Corporate Governance and General Corporate Advice
- Corporate Reorganizations and Spinoffs
- Startups and Venture Capital
Highlights:
- Lead counsel to Actelion in the largest M&A deal in Switzerland and second largest deal in Europe in 2017. NKF devised and implemented a dual deal structure consisting of the USD 30 billion takeover of Actelion by Johnson & Johnson and the demerger and spin-off to shareholders of Actelion’s drug discovery and early clinical development business
- Swiss Counsel to Global Blue and Silverlake Partners in the USD 2.6 billion transatlantic merger with NYSE listed Far Point Acquisition Corporation
- Counsel to leading Latin American retailer FEMSA on the acquisition of Valora Holding AG by way of public tender cash offer
- Swiss counsel to GlaxoSmithKline plc on Swiss law matters in the USD 26 billion GSK-Novartis asset swap (Vaccines, Oncology) and joint venture (Consumer Healthcare) transaction
- Swiss Counsel to Worldline on the CHF 2.75 billion strategic partnership where Worldline acquired SIX Payment Services, the payment services division of SIX
- Swiss law advisor to Investindustrial in connection with the combination of Investindustrial Acquisition Corp. and Ermenegildo Zegna N.V.
- Swiss Counsel to Tokyo-listed NEC Corporation in its acquisition of leading Swiss financial software company Avaloq Group AG
- Counsel to Partners Group on the acquisition of a significant majority stake in leading Swiss watchmaker Breitling from CVC
- Counsel to Landis+Gyr and its shareholders Toshiba/INCJ in the dual track exit process (M&A sale and IPO), resulting in the CHF 2.3 billion IPO of Landis+Gyr, the largest Swiss and third largest European IPO
- Counsel EQT Private Equity on the sale of a majority stake in VFS Global, the leading visa outsourcing services provider, to Blackstone
- Swiss Counsel to Tokio Marine in the USD 1.5 billion sale of Swiss Tokio Milliennium Re to US based RennaissanceRe
- Swiss Counsel to KKR and Alliance Boots GmbH, the Swiss ParentCo, in the USD multi-billion acquisition of Alliance Boots by Walgreen Co.