Linklaters, Allen & Overy and Cravath Swaine & Moore Advised Deutsche Börse’s €3.9 Billion Acquisition of Simcorp

Linklaters, Allen & Overy and Cravath Swaine & Moore Advised Deutsche Börse’s €3.9 Billion Acquisition of Simcorp

The leading firms including Linklaters, Allen & Overy and Cravath Swaine & Moore advised Deutsche Börse’s €3.9 billion acquisition of Danish software provider SimCorp.

As such, the deal represents the German Stock Exchange operator's largest acquisition till date and shows a shift away from capital markets for its revenue stream in favor of data and analytics. The company has called in longtime legal counsel Linklaters to advise it on the deal alongside Danish firm Plesner, Germany’s Hengeler Mueller and Cravath Swaine & Moore, which is acting as US counsel.

SimCorp is being advised by Danish firm Kromann Reumert and Covington & Burling, which is representing the company as US counsel, while Allen & Overy is advising Morgan Stanley in connection with a bridge financing for the deal.

As per the terms of the deal Deutsche Börse will pay 735.0 kroner (€98.7) a share in cash, in an all debt-financed transaction that values SimCorp at €3.9 billion. SimCorp’s board of directors said it had unanimously decided to recommend to shareholders to accept the deal, which is expected to complete Q3.

In addition to this, Deutsche Börse also announced that it intends to merge and float its current data and analytics subsidiaries Qontigo and ISS, which will be combined with SimCorp under a new Investment Management Solutions segment following the successful acquisition of SimCorp by Deutsche Börse.

The Linklaters team advising Deutsche Börse was led by Banking Counsel Urs Lewens, German Head of Banking Marc Trinkus and Banking Partner Przemyslaw Lipin (all Frankfurt).

At Allen & Overy the team included Partners Greg Brown (London), Dr. Walter Uebelhoer (Munich, both banking and finance) and Dr. Jonas Wittgens (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Counsel Dr. Ilja Baudisch (Munich), Senior Associate Marc Van Heerden and Associate Nicole Crockford (both London, all banking and finance).