ACTIVIST SHAREHOLDERS: EXPERIENCES IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE - pemacom

J.P. MORGAN KEYNOTE: CROSS-BORDER M&A IN THE SHADOW OF BREXIT

Callum Mitchell-Thomson, head of investment banking for Germany, Austria and Switzerland for J.P. Morgan, led the MuMAC audience through the expected consequences of Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit). Mr Mitchell-Thomson pointed out that whilst the immediate reactions to the vote were quite dramatic, within a week they had quieted substantially. Similarly, at first it appeared that the outlook for economic growth in 2017 for the European Union, the United States and, in particular, the United Kingdom itself would be worsened materially. Within three months of the referendum, however, the equity capital markets had recovered. On average, cross-border M&A makes up 30 per cent of the overall M&A market. Within Europe, the United Kingdom historically has represented 30...

CROSS-BORDER REAL ESTATE

Tobias Huzarski (KKR Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), Frank Müller (Corpus Sireo), David Poremba (Eastdil Secured) and Dr Jens Ortmanns (McDermott) hosted MuMAC’s first real estate panel and discussed current trends in the European real estate private equity market. As panel head, Dr Ortmanns started the discussion by highlighting the diversity of real estate as an asset class and the broad range of market participants in Europe, including private equity funds, hedge funds, pension funds, insurers, and other national and international institutional investors (recently including many Asian buyers), as well as family offices, developers and high-net-worth individuals. Mr Huzarski initiated a lively discussion about the role real estate plays for private equity funds as part of their overall inv...

AUTOMOTIVE, DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND PRIVATE EQUITY

Florian Kähler (ECM Equity Capital Management), Dirk Liedtke (Raymond James), Martin Schwarzer (PwC), Alexander Sixt (Sixt), and Fabian Wasmus and Thomas von Werner (Penta Investments) discussed the impact of digitalisation on the automotive sector. Dr Joachim Koch (IMAP M&A Consultants) moderated the panel. The automotive industry is changing like never before as a result of digitalisation. In an environment where volume growth will decrease in the next decade, digital leadership in the automotive industry is expected to translate into growth. The panel first discussed the impact of digitalisation on small and medium-sized automotive suppliers. By implementing a homogenous and connected IT system within a company and between companies along the value chain (industry 4.0), companies ...

INVESTMENT FROM THE GULF REGION INTO EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

Raed Fakhri, vice president of investments at Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), presented the company’s investment strategy and showcased some of its recent international investments. Mumtalakat, the investment arm of the Kingdom of Bahrain, is focused on growing and diversifying its portfolio through commercially sound and sustainable investments across multiple industries and geographies. Its key sectors of focus are logistics, technology, media and telecommunications; real estate and tourism; health care; consumer; industrials and manufacturing; and financial and general services. In the past two years, Mumtalakat completed nine international investments, including the acquisition of a stake in PRO Unlimited, a leading provider of software and services in the United S...

M&A AND PRIVATE EQUITY MARKET 2016

This session featured Dr Michael Drill (Lincoln International AG), Dr Andreas Fendel (Quadriga Capital Beteiligungsberatung), Philipp Haindl (Serafin Group), Jan Mayerhöfer (Mayerhöfer & Co Corporate Finance Beratung), Tristan Nagler (Aurelius Investments) and Steve Roberts (PwC Germany), and was moderated by Dr Nikolaus von Jacobs (McDermott). Diving into an evaluation of the current market, the panel found that the overall mood is good despite large amounts of money continuing to chase a limited number of opportunities, leading to a very active, if not crowded, market place. More strategic players are active in the market than in recent years, including many from the United States and Asia, and China in particular. A multitude of new market players, including newly established fi...

LIFE SCIENCES, HEALTH AND PRIVATE EQUITY: LICENSING AND STRUCTURED M&A TRANSACTIONS

Christoph Brandenberger (Healthios Capital Markets), Dr Irina Staatz-Granzer (Staatz BD & Strategy), Dr Sven Oleownik (Gimv Germany), Dr Erich Tauber (Themis Bioscience), Charlie Troup (Duke Street) and Kristian A. Werling (McDermott) discussed licensing and structured M&A transactions. Emmanuelle Trombe (McDermott) moderated the panel, which focused in particular on the convergence of M&A and licensing, structured transactions in privately held companies versus public M&A, and litigation risks related to due diligence obligations. In discussing the convergence of collaboration/licensing and M&A, the panel pointed out that an increasing number of collaborations between start-ups and industrials include an equity component. Alternatively, such collaborations, with or ...

CROSS-BORDER M&A ASIA AND EUROPE

This session addressed the growing M&A activities of Asian investors in Europe, with a focus on Germany. Wei Wang (PwC Germany) led the panel, which included Dr Mei Wu (Joyson Holdings Europe GmbH), Jacob Hoyeon Won (Locus Capital Partner, the ally of Global M&A Partners), Dr Qing Ding (Shentou Capital) and David Dai (MWE China Law Offices). All panellists agreed that the current trend of Asian investors conducting transactions in Europe will be long-term. This is particularly true of Chinese investors, which have been consistently reaching new heights in terms of deal intensity and volume during the years following the last global economic crisis. The panellists also shared the view that, contrary to the overwhelming public consensus in Europe, the governments of both Korea and C...

CROSS-BORDER M&A USA AND EUROPE

This panel featured the insights of Melville Mummert (Raymond James), Torsten Krumm (HQ Equita GmbH), Dr Jan-Mathias Kuhr (Kion Group AG), Samuel Wales (McDermott), Patrick Schaich (Riverside Europe Partners GmbH) and Dr Burkhard Weber (Lincoln International LLC). Mr Mummert opened the discussion with questions revolving around the major themes of the 2016 conference, including digitisation, globalisation and disruption: What role will Brexit play in cross-border M&A? What are the implications of digitisation/digital trends for M&A processes? How will disruptive macroeconomic, geopolitical, capital markets and banking trends affect cross-border M&A? Are Europe and the United States currently buyers’ or sellers’ markets? What were the valuation trends of 2016? Each organisatio...