London — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Inves­tec Bank plc (“Inves­tec”) on its stra­te­gic mino­rity invest­ment in three Capi­tal­mind Inter­na­tio­nal (“Capi­tal­mind”) compa­nies in France, Germany and the Nether­lands. The tran­sac­tion expands the rela­ti­onship between Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind and repres­ents an acce­le­ra­tion of both firms’ consul­ting strategies.

Investec’s parent company, Inves­tec plc, is listed on the two stock exch­an­ges in London and Johan­nes­burg. Investec’s banking busi­ness works with growth compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons and private equity funds, advi­sing clients on capi­tal and treasury risk management.

Focus on medium-sized transactions
Medium-sized tran­sac­tions (€20 — €250 million) in the form of group spin-offs, succes­sion solu­ti­ons, share­hol­der buy-outs, acqui­si­ti­ons and finan­cing are now taking place in an inter­na­tio­nal envi­ron­ment. While large corpo­ra­ti­ons have access to a wide range of profes­sio­nal consul­ting and finan­cing services via inter­na­tio­nal banks and brokers with their specia­li­zed depart­ments, the services for medium-sized tran­sac­tions are still quite regio­nally struc­tu­red, very frag­men­ted and confusing.

Capi­tal­mind is a leading Euro­pean finan­cial advi­sory firm working with family busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, private equity houses and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Investec’s invest­ment in mino­rity stakes in each of the three compa­nies provi­des Capi­tal­mind with a link to the UK, Ireland, Asia and Africa, while Capi­tal­mind links Investec’s consul­ting busi­ness to most of Western Europe, inclu­ding Germany, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Switzerland.

The follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys, toge­ther with Investec’s in-house team in London, advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion in four jurisdictions:

The inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate team was led by part­ner Clive Hope­well, who was supported by senior asso­ciate Richard Bloom­field and asso­ciate Char­lotte Hart (all corpo­rate, London). The French invest­ment was led by part­ner Gildas Louvel, who was supported by asso­ciate Pierre Lagresle (both Corpo­rate, Paris). The German invest­ment was made by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (photo), who was supported by asso­ciate Johanna Schind­ler (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), and the invest­ment in the Nether­lands was led by part­ner Michiel Wurf­bain, who was supported by part­ner and notary René Rieter and asso­cia­tes Nikita Gomme­ren and Musa Dinc (all Corpo­rate, The Hague).

Charles Barlow, who heads Investec’s cross-border corpo­rate finance busi­ness, said, “Bird & Bird under­stands what this tran­sac­tion means to us stra­te­gi­cally, and we are plea­sed to have them on board with their pan-Euro­pean office network to support the deve­lo­p­ment of our rela­ti­onship with Capitalmind.”

Clive Hope­well added: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to successfully assist Inves­tec in comple­ting this important stra­te­gic invest­ment in Euro­pean M&A advi­sory services. We wish the teams at Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind every success in deve­lo­ping this exci­ting new plat­form for M&A advi­sory services across much of Western Europe, parti­cu­larly at a time when demand is expec­ted to be signi­fi­cant post-pandemic.”