De Brauw advised Accsys Technologies Plc, the fast-growing company that enhances the natural properties of wood to make high performance and sustainable building products, on its relationship agreement with Teslin and De Engh and its EUR 34 million capital raise. De Brauw advised together with Slaughter and May, as Accsys is listed at both AIM and Euronext Amsterdam. Teslin and De Engh provided, in aggregate, approximately EUR 13m of new equity through the placing. The Relationship Agreement includes customary terms and conditions for a substantial shareholding of this nature, including the right for Teslin and De Engh to appoint one new non-executive director to the Board of the Company for so long as they hold an interest of at least 15 per cent and a second non-executive director for so long as they hold iat least 22.5 per cent.

De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek advised Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors on the structuring and fundraising of its Dutch Social Impact Real Estate Partnership.

De Brauw is acting as lead advisor to Nolet on its recommended all-cash offer of EUR 18.00 per share for all issued and outstanding shares in the capital of Lucas Bols N.V., representing a total value of approx. EUR 270 million. Nolet and Lucas Bols see a unique opportunity to bring two leading global spirits and cocktail companies with a rich heritage under one Dutch flag. The Nolet Group is one of the oldest family businesses in the Netherlands and known for its spirits KETEL 1 Jenever and Ketel One Vodka. Lucas Bols is one of the oldest cocktail and spirits companies in the Netherlands, active in over 110 countries with its cocktail, liqueurs and spirits brands which include Bols, Passoã and Tequila Partida.

ABN AMRO Bank N.V. has sold its 49% stake in EMS to its joint venture partner Fiserv, Inc. Founded in 2005 as a joint venture, EMS is a Netherlands-based digital payments business, providing innovative and proven infrastructure and high-quality technology for process payments between merchants and their customers. Fiserv now owns 100% of the shares in EMS.

De Brauw has advised ABN AMRO on its strategic partnership with Motive Partners, a leading international specialist private equity firm focusing on venture, growth equity and buyout investments in technology-enabled financial and business services.

De Brauw acted as Dutch counsel to Warburg Pincus in its USD 100 million minority investment in Nord Security, a global leader in internet privacy and security solutions.

De Brauw has acted as lead counsel to Exor on a – for the Netherlands - rare tender offer to repurchase ordinary shares. The EUR 750 million tender offer is part of a larger EUR 1 billion share buy-back program. The tender offer will be executed via a reverse "Dutch auction", allowing qualifying shareholders to select the price at which they wish to sell their shares back to Exor within a pre-determined price range, extending in 1% increments, from a 3% discount to a 10% premium over a VWAP reference price. The tender offer is supported by Exor majority shareholder Giovanni Agnelli B.V., which has committed to participate for an amount of up to EUR 250 million at or above the reference price. As trusted lead legal adviser to Exor, De Brauw was involved in all strategic and legal aspects of the tender offer, the majority shareholder commitment, and the drafting of documentation including the offer memorandum.

De Brauw is advising the Partners of leading infrastructure manager DIF Capital Partners on the sale of the business to CVC Capital Partners.The acquisition provides CVC with a leading infrastructure platform, directly adjacent and highly complementary to its existing private equity, secondary and credit strategies. In addition, the acquisition accelerates the growth of DIF, which will continue to operate under the DIF brand and retain independence over its operations and investment decisions. DIF will continue to be led by its current CEO and Partners. The combination creates a global private markets manager with seven complementary strategies and approximately €177 billion of total assets under management. DIF is headquartered in Amsterdam with €16 billion of assets under management, a team of over 225 professionals across 11 offices and operating two different investment strategies – the Core / Build-to-Core funds and the Core-plus funds. DIF was founded in 2005 and has built a leading position in mid-market infrastructure investments, primarily in Europe, North America and Australia.

De Brauw partner Ferdinand Hengst was appointed by the Amsterdam court as the first observer to monitor the interests of the joint creditors in a combined US Chapter 11, Dutch scheme (WHOA) and US Chapter 15 proceedings. The successful global preventive restructuring process were initiated by Diebold Nixdorf (the cash-strapped cash machine manufacturer) in the US and in the Netherlands, reducing its debt burden by USD 2.1bn. Although supported by a large group of creditors, the cross-border restructuring was complex, involving two parallel restructuring proceedings in the US and the Netherlands, subsidiaries in multiple jurisdictions and creditors under 13 different tranches of notes and term loans. The role of the observer in this case was to supervise the drafting and negotiation of the restructuring plan for the benefit of the joint creditors. Ferdinand provided an extensive opinion on the plan and its implications, an opinion that was followed by the court. The WHOA plan is recognized as a foreign main proceeding under Chapter 15 in the US so that the WHOA plan can also be enforced against creditors in the US. This is the first time that the WHOA is recognized in the US, making the WHOA even a more compelling option for cross-border restructurings.

We advised Koninklijke Philips N.V., a global leader in health technology, on entering into a relationship agreement with EXOR N.V., a diversified holding company controlled by the Agnelli family, as a cornerstone investor.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/cineworld-emerges-chapter-11-bankruptcy-2023-08-01/#:~:text=Aug%201%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Cineworld,slate%20of%20management%20and%20board. De Brauw advised Cineworld, the world's second largest cinema chain, on a USD 4.8 billion debt restructuring transaction spanning all continents. Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 for its US and UK businesses on 7 September 2022. A third division, commonly known as the Rest of the World, is based in the Netherlands and has a separate financing structure. This Dutch group did not file for Chapter 11 but entered into a USD 271 million debt trade, whereby newly-incorporated Cineworld entity Busby purchased the facilities from the existing lenders. On 1 August 2023, Cineworld emerged from the Chapter 11 proceedings and the facilities agreement with Busby was amended to reflect that the facilities will function as an intra-group loan going forward.https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/cineworld-emerges-chapter-11-bankruptcy-2023-08-01/#:~:text=Aug%201%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Cineworld,slate%20of%20management%20and%20board.

De Brauw advises SMART Photonics on attracting EUR 100 million in additional fundingDe Brauw acted as sole advisor to SMART Photonics Holding B.V., the Dutch foundry for photonic integrated circuits, in securing an additional round of funding of EUR 100 million from a group of strategic industry and financial Dutch players and the Dutch government.Among the group of new lenders are strategic players from the semiconductor industry (ASML, NXP and VDL Groep) as well as financial institutions (ING, BOP Impact Ventures and Deep Tech Fund, which is part of Invest-NL and partly funded by the ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy). Previous investors, including Innovation Industries, BOM, PhotonDelta and KPN Ventures have joined in this funding round again. The government of the Netherlands separately provides EUR 60 million public funding as part of the approved National Growth Fund project PhotonDelta.With this new round of funding, SMART Photonics will be able to strengthen its role as the leading manufacturer of next generation chips in a growing, resilient European photonic value chain. SMART Photonics will use the funds to extend its manufacturing capabilities and accelerate the development of the company’s photonic integrated chip technology platforms and its Process Design Kits (PDKs).