Host of Global 100 firms advise on Coke bottler’s $31bn three-way merger

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Over ten firms were involved in the complex cross-border merger that saw three of The Coca-Cola Company’s bottlers unite to create the world’s largest independent bottler for the soft drink maker.

Combining the operations of Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Coca-Cola Iberian Partners (CCIP) and Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke (CCEAG), Coca-Cola European Partners will be headquartered in London and serve over 300 million consumers across 13 countries. The new company is expected to have net revenues of $12.6bn and a value of around $31bn.

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Deal watch: Corporate activity in July and August 2015

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PEARSON TURNS TO FRESHFIELDS ON SUMMER FT AND ECONOMIST SELL-OFF

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Pearson twice over the summer. The publisher sold the Financial Times to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom client Nikkei and split its 50% stake in The Economist Group between Macfarlanes client and co-shareholder Exor, while Linklaters acted for The Economist.

 

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DLA splits from SA alliance firm Cliffe Dekker over integration and branding issues

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Last month saw DLA Piper and South African firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr end their ten-year formal alliance over integration and branding issues, with the international firm making plans to open a greenfield site in Johannesburg to preserve a presence in the market.

DLA wanted Cliffe Dekker, which carries the DLA branding, to become more closely integrated with the firm. However, the majority of the partnership at Cliffe Dekker felt they would lose too much independence and freedom to operate as a result. At the time the duo said they would continue to maintain a relationship to support existing client relationships and refer clients where appropriate.

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Greenberg makes a splash in Europe after two mass summer hires in Berlin and Warsaw

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Greenberg Traurig has made a concerted push into Europe this summer. Having recruited a 12-lawyer real estate team in May from Allen & Overy and Norton Rose Fulbright in Poland, including both firms’ former local real estate heads, in July Greenberg acquired Olswang’s entire Berlin office, comprising a 14-partner team, to launch its first German outpost.

Greenberg’s German base will open its doors on 1 October 2015, as the firm’s fourth European office after London, Amsterdam and Warsaw. The group hire included taking Olswang’s managing partner in Germany, Christian Schede, who will serve as the German managing shareholder for Greenberg, as well as a team that Olswang has been building since it first set up shop in Berlin in 2007. It had hired from Magic Circle firms Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to build a practice that was ranked second tier for real estate in The Legal 500.

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The Finance View: Bigger, simpler, cheaper? How to position the modern securitisation counsel

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Michael West assesses the impact of the ongoing rehabilitation of structured finance

Securitisation lawyers have been hard pressed since the financial crisis, diversifying their practices and often even ditching the S word. However, relief has been increasingly at hand in the last two years as the thinking of regulators and policy-makers has swung from seeing the financing tool as a cause of the banking crisis to key for getting more investment into the economy. Highlighting this shift at a speech to the Global ABS 2015 conference in Barcelona in June, the Bank of England’s executive director of prudential policy David Rule gave public backing to proposals to create EU-wide criteria for simple, standard and transparent (SST) products, a move he said would ‘play an essential role in de-stigmatising European securitisation, helping the market to develop on a sustainable track and attracting a broader investor base’.

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Life during law: Peter Crossley, Squire Patton Boggs

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I started life in South Africa mainly doing crime and divorce. Knowing something about criminal law, and the cut and thrust of the courtroom, is a good base for anybody who wants to do litigation.

I wanted to go to the Bar but my father was a bank manager in South Africa with a lot of barrister customers who weren’t doing very well so he basically said: ‘You’ll never make it so become a solicitor.’ Both my parents were English, my father was at Dunkirk and was badly wounded and captured so he emigrated to South Africa for health reasons. He was always a pretty strong character and was the sort of man who you couldn’t ignore!

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A&O leads City’s big four amid subdued results

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Firm posts 8% PEP hike and 4% revenue increase

With all of the Magic Circle financial results in, Allen & Overy (A&O) has outperformed its peers in an otherwise muted year of growth for the London elite, which saw both Clifford Chance (CC)’s and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s profitability drop.

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Candidates emerge as CMS gears up for autumn managing partner election

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Four partners are tipped as potential successors as Weston prepares to step down

CMS Cameron McKenna is gearing up for its managing partner election this autumn as chief Duncan Weston prepares to stand down from the role after eight years, with potential successors across the firm’s corporate and disputes practices already coming to the fore.

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CC innovation chief creates taskforces to drive change

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Firm eyes IBM Watson partnership and new software products

Six months into the role, Clifford Chance (CC)’s head of innovation and business change, Bas Boris Visser, has moved to re-establish the firm’s reputation as a pioneering business, partnering with IBM Watson, and forming innovation committees.

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Jacobs frontrunner for next Linklaters senior partner

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Slaughters’ senior partner race also underway

‘There’s no-one else,’ mused one ex-Linklaters partner. ‘If Charlie Jacobs isn’t the next senior partner at Linklaters, it would be a bigger upset than UKIP winning the next general election. If I was Ladbrokes, I’d give better odds for Farage for PM than any of Charlie’s rivals at Linklaters.’

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