Links, Hengeler, Schoenherr act on Apax’s Takko buyout

Hengeler and Schoenherr acted for Advent. Both firms are longstanding advisers to the US private equity house. On the buyer side Linklaters’ Munich office, along with Wolf Theiss, advised Apax.

Munich M&A partner Hans-Jorg Ziegenhain led the deal for Hengeler, with Schoenherr Vienna-based corporate partner Christian Herbst advising on Austrian and Central and Eastern European (CEE) aspects of the deal.

For Linklaters, corporate partners Rainer Traugott and Stephan Morsch led the transaction, while M&A partner Clemens Philipp Schindler headed the Wolf Theiss team on CEE matters.
Advent secured a sizeable profit on Takko, having bought it in 2007 for e770m.

The sale of the German-based company, which boasts nearly 1,500 outlets across Europe, is one of the biggest private equity ­transactions in recent times in the CEE region, but Herbst said he expects to see more deals come through in the sector in 2011.

“This trend, that private equity [houses] will either restructure their portfolios or seek exits in dual-track proceedings, will ­continue,” he predicted. “We also expect to see a rise in ­activity from US and UK private equity companies in CEE.”

Last year saw the ­completion of the e425m sale of Austria-based ­Constantia Packaging to One Equity Partners, a deal on which Freshfields ­Bruckhaus Deringer acted for the buyer.