Transactions: Featured Interviews 78 Paques Brasil Effluent Treatment System Buys a Majority Stake in Faxon Química 82 Lokky’s €2.6 Million Crowdfunding 84 Soleal Unternehmerkapital AG Enters the Capital of WMT 86 Swaine Group Limited’s Acquisition of The Cambridge Satchel Company Limited 88 Karate Combat’s Launch of DAO The collapse of FTX and other seismic moves in the M&A landscape continues an eventful Q4. November saw the release of Berkeley Research Group’s M&A Disputes Report 20221, confirming several of Lawyer Monthly’s observations from earlier months: ESG disputes are on the rise as organisations are called to meet new disclosure criteria, disputes more broadly are expected to surge in 2023 due to market volatility and recession fears, and the EMEA region in particular is set to become a hotspot for disputes. Most interestingly, the BRG report identified financial services, fintech and energy & climate as the areas that have seen the most dispute activity this year. In terms of deals, the most noteworthy story of the month stems from the historic collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. A rescue deal from fellow offshore exchange Binance fell through2 following a week of public feuding between the two companies’ leadership, capped by Binance CEO Changpeng triggering a virtual bank run with the announcement that his company would sell its FTX-produced FTT tokens. FTX’s subsequent bankruptcy, with billions of dollars’ worth of customer assets at risk, has been dubbed crypto’s ‘Lehman moment’ by analysts.3 Further high-profile mergers were also walked back in other quarters. In the publishing world, Penguin owner Bertelsmann confirmed4 that a planned $2.2 billion merger between Penguin Random House and the USbased Simon & Schuster publishing house would not go ahead after a decision by the seller not to appeal a US judge’s ruling that the deal would impact authors’ pay and was therefore illegal. At the same time, a number of new significant deals were announced throughout the month. On 10 November, the deals world received the news that Origin Energy Ltd, Australia’s second-largest energy producer and retailer, was backing an $11.8 billion buyout5 from a consortium headed by Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management – set to be Australia’s largest ever private equity deal if successful. Equally noteworthy was the long-awaited announcement of Ritchie Bros’ planned acquisition of digital marketplace IAA for around $7.3 billion6, prompting calls for better terms from IAA shareholders. Lawyer Monthly will watch with interest as these moves develop. 1https://media.thinkbrg.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/08150114/ BRG-MA-Disputes-Report-2022.pdf 2https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/09/binance-walksaway-from-ftx-deal-wsj/ 3https://www.ft.com/content/a4d31278-a5d9-4a02-a1694996f4a8e8f8 4https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/penguin-random-housescraps-22-bln-deal-merge-with-simon-schuster-2022-11-21/ 5https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/origin-bln-buyoutbrookfield-lng 6https://www.goodwinlaw.com/news/2022/11/11_07-ritchie-bros-iaa Mergers & Acquisitions 90 Argea’s Acquisition of Cantina Zaccagnini 91 Partou Acquires Kindervilla Wereld Group 92 Pizzium Acquires 100% of Crocca 93 Plastic Omnium’s €520 Million Acquisition of Varroc Lighting Systems 94 Sensient’s Acquisition of Endemix 95 The Acquisition of Cycleenergy 96 VDK Groep Acquires AA Installatietechniek Nederland
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