Kirkland & Ellis, Skadden and Freshfields have landed roles in the €29.4bn takeover of Germany’s TK Elevator (TKE) by Finnish lift maker Kone, one of Europe’s largest takeovers in recent years.
Kirkland and Freshfields are advising TKE on the deal alongside Finnish firm Roschier, while Skadden is acting for Kone alongside Finland’s Hannes Snellman.
The deal will see Kone pay TKE’s private equity owners, Advent and Cinven, €5bn in cash, about €15bn in shares and assume €9.2bn of TKE’s debt.
It follows a decade-long pursuit of the company by Kone, the Financial Times reported, and will see TKE’s strength in US combine with Kone’s in Asia.
The Kirkland team is headed by Munich corporate partners Benjamin Leyendecker and Philip Goj and London corporate partner Adrian Maguire. The trio also fronted the team that advised the consortium led by Advent, Cinven and local investor RAG-Stiftung when it bought TKE in 2020 for €17bn from German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp, which was advised on the deal by longtime counsel Linklaters.
Meanwhile, Skadden’s team is led by London corporate partners Sandro de Bernardini, Sarah Knapp and Lorenzo Corte.
Philippe Delorme, Kone’s chief executive, said the deal “would meaningfully enhance our ability to meet customers’ growing demand for reliable and sustainable solutions and services in a rapidly evolving environment, while creating a stronger, more diverse global team”.
The deal is expected to generate annual savings of €700m within three years of completion, primarily through higher density of service networks and combined R&D capabilities. The combined company would have about €20.5bn in annual sales.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is not due to close until the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest.
Bank of America is acting as financial advisor to Kone on the deal.
Kirkland, Skadden and Freshfields all scored highly in London Stock Exchange Group’s global M&A legal advisor rankings for the first three months of the year, when global deal-making clocked in at just over $1trn, up 35% from the same period in 2024 and the strongest opening period for deal-making in five years.
Kirkland ranked third behind Sullivan & Cromwell and Wachtell after working on deals worth just shy of $138bn, while Skadden’s work on $111.6bn of deals saw it rank sixth and Freshfields ($71.7bn) placed 11th.
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