Morrison & Foerster is advising SoftBank Group Corp. in relation to its proposed acquisition of ARM Holdings plc. Further details of the transaction, which values ARM Holdings plc at c.£24billion, are set out in the attached announcement.
The Morrison &Foerster team is being led by Ken Siegel, managing partner of the firm’s Tokyo office, andGraeme Sloan, head of corporate in London and a global chair of M&A.
The London members of the team include corporate partners VladMaly, Andrew Boyd and Gary Brown, tax partner Trevor James and finance partner Phil Slater.
The team also includes Tokyo partners Ivan Smallwood, Noah Carr, Leo Aguilar and James Robinson(all corporate) and finance partner Dale Caldwell.
Antitrust advice is being provided by partners Jeff Jaeckel in Washington, D.C. and RonyGerrits and Tom McQuail in Brussels. Regulatory advice is being given by partners Jessie Liu in Washington, D.C., Kevin Roberts in London and Andreas Gruenwald in Berlin.
On background:
- 5 of the attached announcement lists all the legal advisers on this transaction.
- MoFo has advised SoftBank on the following M&A transactions in the past year:
- June 2016: MoFo advised longtime client SoftBank Corp. on the sale of its controlling stake in Finnish gaming company SupercellOy to Tencent Holdings Ltd for $8.6 billion.
- October 2015: MoFo advised SoftBank on its investment in SoFi, one of the U.S.’s leading marketplace lenders. The $1 billion in Series E funding led by SoftBankwas the largest single financing round in the fintech space at the time it was announced, as detailed in the press release issued by SoftBank.
- June 2015: MoFo advised SoftBank on its $1 billion investment in Korea’s top e-commerce firm Cooping.
- Ken Siegel has represented SoftBank in over $50 billion of M&A transactions since 2010, including in:
- SoftBank’s $21.6 billion acquisition of Sprint.
- Sprint’s $4 billion take private of Clearwire.
- Alibaba’s initial public offering on the NYSE.
- Alibaba’s restructuring of its financial services business.
- Alibaba’s $7.6 billion share repurchase of shares from Yahoo.
- SoftBank’s $2.3 billion acquisition of eAccess.
- SoftBank and GungHo’s $1.5 billion acquisition of a majority interest in Supercell.
- SoftBank’s $2 billion acquisition of Brightstar.
- SoftBank’s $1 billion investment in Coupang.
- SoftBank’s $627 million investment in Snapdeal.
- SoftBank’s $190 million investment in Ola Cabs.
- SoftBank’s $250 million strategic partnership with Legendary Entertainment.
- SoftBank’s investment in KuaiDiDache.
- This transaction is the largest public M&A deal in the UK this year (to date).
- This transaction is the first large-scale transaction involving a UK target to be announced post Brexit vote.
- This transaction is the largest ever all cash transaction for a UK target and the largest acquisition of a European technology business.
