Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Brazil´s Demarest Advogados have helped Ball sell US$3.42 billion worth of assets to clear the way for its acquisition of Rexam, a merger of the world´s two largest beverage can makers.
Ball and Rexam sold 17 can factories located in the US, Europe and Brazil to Luxembourg glass and metal packaging company Ardagh Group. Ardagh hired the New York, London and Washington, DC offices of Shearman & Sterling LLP and Brazil´s Stocche Forbes Advogados for the acquisition. Machado, Meyer, Sendacz e Opice Advogados was Ardagh´s antitrust counsel in Brazil.
Grinberg e Cordovil Advogados was Brazilian antitrust counsel to Ball.
Two of the factories are located in Brazil, the Alagoinha and Jacareí can plants. Before the sale, Ball carried out a corporate reorganisation of its Brazilian subsidiaries, merging Latapack and Ball Brasil Holdings into Latapack-Ball Embalagens and creating a divested company into which it transferred Latapack-Ball´s assets. The sale was completed on 30 June.
The sold assets are the equivalent of about one-fifth of Ball and Rexam´s combined production plants in Brazil, the US and Europe. Ardagh´s acquisition makes it the third biggest beverage can manufacturer in the world and in Brazil.
Ball agreed to buy Rexam last year. The two companies got conditional approval for their merger from Brazil´s antitrust agency CADE in December - it was the first competition authority to provisionally clear the deal. The approval was conditional on the companies divesting factories to a third party; the assets to be sold had to be able to produce 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion cans a year. Without the divestment, the two companies accounted for more than 70 per cent of Brazil´s can manufacturing industry. CADE gave its final agreement to the deal on 8 June.
Counsel to Ball Corporation
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Partners Mario Nogueira, Adriana Daiuto, Carlos Eduardo Orsolon, Cássia Pizzotti, Claudia Maluf, Claudio Mattos, Eloisa Curi, Glaucia Ferreira, Maria Lucia Almeida Prado e Silva, Mauricio Levy and Renato Canizares and associates Ademilson Viana, Henrique Anders, Ivan Lima, Juliana Melo Bueno, Letícia Hailer, Min Gon Kim and Ramon Lima in São Paulo
Grinberg e Cordovil Advogados
Partner Leonor Cordovil in São Paulo
Counsel to Ardagh Group
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Partners Clare O´Brien, Kenneth Laverriere, Laurence Bambino, Jordan Altman and Malcolm Montgomery, counsel Robert Fagiola, and associates Lara Aryani, Michael Steinke, Kelly Hamren-Anderson, Eric Grosshandler, JB Betker and Julie Fleischman in New York; partner George Karafotias, counsel Mehran Massih, associates Caitlin Ludwigsen, Andy Zwecker, Cecilia Ferreira and Dillon Smith; and associate Jeffrey Tate in Washington, DC
Partners Paulo Padis and Domingos Refinetti and associates Manuel Hermeto, Julia Castelo Branco, Teo Galvão, Raphael Niemeyer, Valeria Araujo in São Paulo
Machado, Meyer, Sendacz e Opice Advogados
Partner Tito Amaral de Andrade and associate Thalita de Carvalho Novo in São Paulo
(Latin Lawyer - 18.07.2016)
(Notícia na íntegra)
http://latinlawyer.com/news/article/49959/ball-closes-us34-billion-asset-sale-ahead-rexam-merger/
