Shearman & Sterling has led for Nokia on its €1.7bn buyout of Siemens’ stake in Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) in a deal that has seen Slaughter and May step in for the German engineering giant.
Announced on 1 July, Shearman fielded a multi-disciplinary team across London and New York led by City M&A partner Jeremy Kutner for longstanding client Nokia. Slaughter and May led by London corporate partner Tim Boxell advised the Siemens team led out of its German headquarters.
NSN was formed in 2006 in a €16bn joint venture between Nokia and Siemens aimed at offering innovative mobile broadband technology and services. Advising on its formation was former Shearman City-based partner Jonathan Coppin opposite Clifford Chance (CC).In April this year CC also advised NSN on the sale of its business support systems business to Redknee Solutions for €40m.
The JV was governed by English law and Kutner, who was promoted to partner in 2011, led alongside London finance partners Mei Lian and Clifford Atkins and New York M&A partners Peter Lyons, Scott Petepiece and Samuel Waxman.
The deal was turned round in a week, during which Lian and Atkins put a €1.2bn loan facility in place. Kutner said: ‘They did an amazing job of getting it done in a short space of time.
‘For us the real thing about this type of transaction is how well we work across our practice. A lot of people say that is the case but here it really was. I was closing another deal in Singapore and when I went to bed the people in New York picked it up.’
Shearman was assisted by De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and Slaughters by Houthoff Buruma in relation to NSN in the Netherlands.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2013.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
