Category: News

We are pleased to announce that Arthur Braun has been recommended again by Who’s Who Legal (WWL) and is ranked among the top nine competition lawyers in the Czech Republic for 2024!

Congratulations, Arthur, on your repeated and well-deserved recognition!

Through interviews with their researchers, the publication gathers the views, skills and knowledge of leading competition lawyers and economists around the world. The individuals recognized receives the highest number of nominations from peers, corporate advisors, clients and various market sources during WWL’s research period.

The company transfer also successfully secures the future of SPORT 2000 in Austria.

20 June 2024. Zentrasport Österreich e. Gen. sells its operating business to ANWR sports GmbH, a company of the ANWR Group. In particular, services for sports retailers were transferred. A team from bpv Huegel advised Zentrasport on this sale. The sale follows a successful reorganization procedure in the self-administration of Zentrasport, which bpv Huegel structured and supported.

The sale was an important step towards securing the future of the Austrian sports retailer and preserving jobs at the Austrian site in Ohlsdorf. The affiliated Austrian sports retailers will have a strong partner in the ANWR GROUP, and the expertise of the Austrian organisation based in Ohlsdorf will contribute to strengthening SPORT 2000’s international presence, Holger Schwarting, member of the Zentrasport Management Board, is quoted as saying about the transaction.

ANWR GROUP eG, headquartered in Mainhausen (Hesse), is one of the highest-turnover retail cooperatives in Europe with a settlement volume of EUR 20.7 billion (2023) and a focus on the shoe, sporting, and leather goods trade. Around 20,000 medium-sized companies are affiliated to the ANWR Group via its two credit institutions – DZB BANK GmbH and AKTIVBANK AG. The group itself employs around 1,400 people.

Under the lead of Elke Napokoj (Corporate/M&A) and Bernhard Schatz (Insolvencies/Restructuring), Michaela Pelinka (Corporate/M&A) and Thomas Capek (Insolvencies/Restructuring) advised on the transaction in the bpv Huegel team.

STRABAG SE is planning to acquire together with PORR AG technical operations management and construction projects divisions of Vienna General Hospital (AKH Wien), Austrian project development business and thermal spa holdings in Austria. A team of bpv Huegel is advising STRABAG SE on the transaction.

Vienna, 14 May 2024. STRABAG has announced to intend to acquire parts of VAMED Group together with PORR AG via a joint holding company for a total purchase price of about EUR 90 million. The seller is VAMED AG, which is majority owned by Fresenius SE & Co KGaA of Germany.

The object of the transaction is VAMED-KMB Krankenhausmanagement und Betriebsführungsges.m.b.H. (VKMB) and VAMED Standortentwicklung und Engineering GmbH (VSG), comprising the technical operations management and construction projects divisions of Vienna General Hospital (AKH Wien), including the Austrian project development business and thermal spa holdings in Austria.

The purchase agreement was signed by the joint holding company of STRABAG SE and PORR AG. PORR AG and STRABAG SE will each hold half of the joint holding company. STRABAG SE still requires approval from its Supervisory Board in order to finalise the transaction. The transaction is also subject to regulatory approval, including approval by the relevant competition authorities.

The transaction expands STRABAG’s service portfolio in technical facility management to include the medical sector while enhancing its expertise in project development in the healthcare sector. STRABAG SE is a European-based technology group for construction services with around 86,000 employees generating an annual output volume of around EUR 19 billion.

The transaction was led in-house by Meera Ramakrishnan (Head of Corporate Austria).

Led by Christoph Nauer (Corporate/M&A, Capital Markets) and Thomas Lettau (Corporate/M&A), the bpv Huegel transaction team included: Roland Juill (Corporate/M&A), Astrid Ablasser-Neuhuber (Antitrust Law), Gerhard Fussenegger (Antitrust Law, FDI), Nicolas Wolski (Tax Law), Lucas Hora (Tax Law), Florian Plattner (Contract Law, Litigation), Wolfgang Berger (Public Procurement Law), Paul Pfeifenberger (Labor Law), Anna Zirkler (Corporate/M&A) and Barbara Valente (Corporate/M&A).

Financial advisors were PwC (Gerald Eibisberger and Georg Schabetsberger) for STRABAG SE and BDO (Markus Bartl and Raffaela Uhl) for PORR AG. KPMG Law (Wendelin Ettmayer and Stephanie Sauer) provided legal advice to PORR AG. A team of Latham & Watkins advised Fresenius and VAMED AG as seller on the transaction.

Vienna, April 2024. bpv Huegel has advised Verbund AG on the acquisition of a wind farm in the Austrian federal state of Burgenland with a total nominal output of 10.15 MW. The wind farm was sold in a bidding process. The seller is a private developer and operator of wind farms.

Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A) led the bpv Huegel team which advised Verbund AG on all legal aspects of the successful transaction. In addition to corporate law matters and energy law expertise, the advice included the structuring of the transaction as well as the negotiation and finalisation of the transaction documents.

bpv Huegel regularly advises energy suppliers and investors on the acquisition and sale of assets and equity interests in the energy sector, including Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 4 on the sale of its stake in Energie Steiermark.

Advisor to Verbund AG, bpv Huegel:

Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A)
Christian Schneider (Partner, Head of Public Economic Law)
Nicolas Wolski (Partner, Tax Law)
Johannes Mitterecker (Attorney at Law, Corporate/M&A)
Tim Pasternak (Attorney at Law, Corporate/M&A)
Paul Pfeifenberger (Attorney at Law, Real Estate Law)
Anna Zirkler (Associate, Corporate/M&A)

13 March 2024. bpv Huegel advised the investors and the management on the sale of a majority stake in EYYES GmbH to the German Vector Informatik GmbH.

A team of bpv Huegel led by Thomas Lettau (Partner, Co-Head Corporate/M&A) structured the sales process and assisted the investors and the management in negotiating and finalising the transaction agreements.

bpv Huegel has already advised an investor on the acquisition of a stake in EYYES GmbH in 2019.

EYYES is a pioneer in the field of driving assistance solutions and traffic detection with artificial intelligence based on camera sensor technology.

With 33 locations worldwide and more than 4,000 employees, Vector supports its customers with a professional platform with tools, software components and services for the development of embedded systems.

The bpv Huegel team was led by Thomas Lettau and included Johannes Mitterecker, Tim Pasternak, Anna Zirkler (all Corporate /M&A) and Nicolas Wolski (Tax Law).

With NXAI, the potentially ground breaking European Large Language Model technology xLSTM will be further developed.

14 February 2024. AI pioneer Sepp Hochreiter, Netural X and Stefan Pierer’s PIERER Digital Holding founded the company NXAI GmbH with the help of bpv Huegel. NXAI will drive the development and promotion of cutting-edge European AI research and innovative AI solutions at the highest level for the international market. NXAI is focusing on the potentially ground breaking European Large Language Model technology xLSTM.

A team of bpv Huegel led by Florian Neumayr and Stefan Gaug advised Sepp Hochreiter on the formation of the joint venture company and the participation agreement in this high-profile transaction in the technology sector. A team of Oberhammer Rechtsanwälte acted for PIERER Digital Holding and Netural X.

The national and international media response was significant. The German newspaper Handelsblatt, for example, ran the headline in its AI briefing: “Sepp versus Sam – German AI researcher plans a better ChatGPT” in reference to Sam Altman, the US entrepreneur, investor, software developer and CEO of OpenAI.

PIERER Digital Holding GmbH holds 37 percent of NXAI, the remaining shares are held by Netural X (37 percent) and Sepp Hochreiter (26 percent).

Further information: www.nx-ai.com

About Sepp Hochreiter

Sepp Hochreiter is one of the most renowned AI researchers. In 1991, he developed the LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) technology as a cornerstone, paving the way for today’s artificial intelligence. The technology was the leading method in speech processing and text analysis until 2017 and has been used billions of times in smartphones to date. Sepp Hochreiter is Director of the University Institute for Machine Learning and Head of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT).

We advised Helanis AG, a Swiss company, on the acquisition of the Schaltag Group, which has more than 250 employees and 11,000 m2 of production space in Switzerland (Effretikon near Zurich), the Czech Republic (Ústí nad Orlicí), Germany (Ravensburg) and Spain (Valladolid). Schaltag is a leading specialist in the field of mechanical engineering and provides services in the areas of automation, switchgear, instrumentation, machinery and equipment design and cable assembly

The Czech company with approximately 160 employees is the largest plant in the group. The objective of this strategic acquisition, which was announced on 3 June 2024, is to ensure sustainable growth, further develop the product portfolio and strengthen the Schaltag Group’s customer relationships. Headquartered in Effretikon, Switzerland, Schaltag AG is a leading industrial solutions provider with extensive experience in engineering, purchasing and manufacturing. Many well-known companies from various industries are long-standing customers of Schaltag. The total amount of the transaction was not disclosed.

Kellerhals Carrard was the main advisor in the transaction, while Advant Beiten advised on German law. Legal advice on Czech law during due diligence and the entire transaction was provided by the team of bpv BRAUN PARTNERS led by partner Arthur Braun, M.A. and lawyers Mgr. Markéta Kleinová, Mgr. Jindra Pozniaková, Mgr. Nikola Faltová and associate Mgr. Sabina Škrobánková. Managing partner of bpv BRAUN PARTNERS, Arthur Braun, M.A. said: „It was an interesting transaction that was quickly brought to a successful conclusion.“

The Swiss company Helanis AG, headquartered in Zurich, is a newly formed holding company controlled by a Swiss management team led by Dominik Hanslin.

Happy to announce that our Prague office bpv BRAUN PARTNERS assisted our French client, LFB SA and its subisidairy EUROPLASMA GmbH, in acquiring Amber Plasma a.s., a company operating 12 plasma collection centers in the Czech Republic.
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Congrats to our dedicated team, led by Arthur Braun and the stellar support of Markéta Nešetřilová (Kleinová), Evelina Weagová, Nikola Faltová and Nikola Ourodová, who contributed to the smooth facilitation of due diligence and the transaction.

🇬🇧 Read the whole press release

🇩🇪 Lesen Sie die aktuelle Pressemitteilung

#Acquisition #LifeSciences #bpvTeam

Our office in Prague and Bratislava provided comprehensive legal advice to UCED from the CREDITAS Group portfolio on the successful acquisition of 100% of the shares in the Slovak energy group GGE, one of the leading producers and distributors of electricity and heat in Slovakia.

UCED, part of the Czech investment group CREDITAS, has decided to acquire GGE, which is one of the leading Slovak energy groups with its 213 MW heat network and more than 70 MW of electricity network. Its portfolio includes, among others, the Považská Bystrica steam and gas heating plant. GGE also owns more than 90 km of heat distribution lines and is dedicated to building and interconnecting local distribution systems. This strategic acquisition will strengthen UCED’s market position and bring synergic benefits to both companies.

bpv BRAUN PARTNERS played a leading role in this international transaction and provided comprehensive legal advice and assistance in all negotiations and preparation of complete transaction documentation, including due diligence, negotiation of W&I insurance and financing of the transaction. Within the entire transaction, bpv BRAUN PARTNERS worked closely with UK law firm Watson Farley & Williams on all UK law aspects. The total value of the transaction was not disclosed.

Legal advice throughout the transaction was provided by the Czech and Slovak team of bpv BRAUN PARTNERS consisting of David Vosol, Igor Augustinič, Ondrej Poništiak, Pavel Vintr, Ivana Horáková, David Plevka, Juraj Gazda, Zuzana Dzilská and Monika Kardošová. David Vosol, partner at bpv BRAUN PARTNERS, evaluates the successful transaction as follows. “Many thanks go to our entire team and to the team of Watson Farley & Williams. There were crucial moments, sometimes well past midnight, when the entire team managed to give our client everything he needed at a tremendous pace, despite tough negotiations and pressure. The complexity of legal advice in an international transaction of this type must be able to cope with multiple jurisdictions. This only adds to the demands of negotiating the transaction, to the extent of the due diligence and to the complexity of the transactional and financial documentation as well as to the process of obtaining approvals from the various authorities in all the countries involved. But when all of this is managed, the reward is a satisfied client who also thanks to it succeeded in expanding into another market in Central and Eastern Europe.”

CREDITAS Group has been active on the energy market since 2013. The distribution systems of its energy division UCED supply energy to more than 7,000 regular customers. In 2023, the Group’s EBITDA exceeded CZK 2.2 billion. UCED has ambitions to become a leader in decentralised energy in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and to expand into other Central and Eastern European countries