Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Weiss, Linklaters and Gleiss Lutz are among firms called in to advise Volkswagen Group’s sale of a majority stake in its marine engine unit Everllence to private equity firm Bain Capital.
Kirkland is advising Bain on the deal while Paul Weiss is advising Bain on the financing aspects of the transaction. Linklaters is advising Volkswagen and Gleiss Lutz is advising Volkswagen’s supervisory board on the sale.
Bain has agreed to buy a 51% stake in Everllence, which will generate proceeds of about €7.4bn for Volkswagen. Volkswagen will retain the remaining 49%. The deal is subject to the completion of consultation processes under French law and other regulatory approvals, which Volkswagen says should be completed by the end of this year.
Everllence is the world’s leading developer and manufacturer of 2-stroke and 4-stroke marine engines and other turbomachinery, generating annual revenue of about €5bn.
The Kirkland team advising Bain on the deal included corporate partners Benjamin Leyendecker, Philip Goj and Sebastian Heim, debt finance partner Alexander Längsfeld, tax partner Michael Ehret and technology and IP transactions partner Jacqueline Clover.
The Paul Weiss team advising on the financing was led by corporate partners Neel Sachdev, Kanesh Balasubramaniam and Marco Bagnato, alongside tax partner Timothy Lowe.
The Linklaters team on the deal was led by corporate and M&A partners Ralph Wollburg, Achim Kirchfeld, Andreas Zenner and private equity specialist Andreas Müller. They were supported by antitrust and foreign investment team partners Christoph Barth, Kaan Güreer and Ryan Cheng in Beijing.
Other Linklaters partners advising on the deal included Martina Farkas and Julia Rupp (corporate/M&A and private equity); Kerstin Wilhem (litigation, arbitration, investigations); Julian Böhmer (tax); Przemyslaw Lipin (banking); and Matthew Devey (employment and pensions).
Meanwhile the Gleiss Lutz team was led by corporate law partners Michael Arnold, Gabriele Rosskopf and Adrian Bingel, with support from partners Ralf Morshäuser (M&A), Christian Arnold (employment) and Alexander Werder (tax).
Florian Taufmann, a partner at Bain Capital, said: “We believe in Everllence as a global technology leader in maritime decarbonisation, naval defence and distributed industrial power. Everllence is uniquely positioned to enable energy transition in global seaborne trade and address increasing power needs from accelerating data centre energy demand.”
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