Slaughters lands BOC Edwards sale despite parent's panel snub

Despite being knocked off Linde Group's panel of legal advisers, Slaughter and May has advised BOC Edwards, a Linde subsidiary, on its acquisition by CCMP Capital.

As reported by The Lawyer (5 March), Slaughters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer were both dumped from Linde's handful of preferred counsel, with Linklaters taking over, despite both firms acting on Linde's £8bn acquisition of BOC last year.

But Slaughters picked up the instruction for the $889m (£461m) purchase of BOC Edwards by CCMP, which was advised by Kirkland & Ellis.

Linde had indicated at the time of its acquisition that it intended to focus on BOC's gases and engineering businesses and would consider selling off other subsidiaries such as BOC Edwards, its components division.

Partner Richard de Carle, who led the Slaughters team acting for BOC Edwards, said the firm's instruction came before Linde's panel review was launched last November.

Before BOC merged with Linde Slaughters was BOC's longstanding adviser, with corporate partner Frances Murphy managing the client relationship. Linde Group head of M&A Andrew Brackfield led the in-house team. Together with general counsel Nick Deeming, Brackfield is a legacy BOC in-house lawyer.

Brackfield stressed that Linklaters was Linde's go-to firm going forward.

Private equity house CCMP was particularly interested in BOC Edwards' potential in Asia.

Meanwhile, CCMP, the successor to JPMorgan Chase's private equity arm, is a new client for Kirkland, brought in by lead partner Graham White, who joined the firm a year ago from Linklaters together with private equity partner Raymond McKeeve.

CCMP joins property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz as a client that White and McKeeve have brought with them to Kirkland from Linklaters.