Stuttgart/ DLA Piper advi­sed Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG on the sale of L’Orange GmbH to Wood­ward Inc. advise Rolls-Royce plc. and Wood­ward Inc. today jointly announ­ced that they have signed an agree­ment for the acqui­si­tion by Wood­ward of L’Orange GmbH and its asso­cia­ted busi­nesses in Germany, the U.S. and China for an enter­prise value of €700 million. L’Orange is part of the Power Systems divi­sion of the Rolls-Royce Group.

The tran­sac­tion was appro­ved by the boards of Rolls-Royce and Wood­ward and the super­vi­sory board of Rolls-Royce Power Systems. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close at the end of the second quar­ter of 2018. The tran­sac­tion is subject to the appr­oval of German anti­trust authorities.

Rolls-Royce Power Systems, a divi­sion of Rolls-Royce plc, is one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of engi­nes, propul­sion systems and distri­bu­ted energy systems. Under the MTU brand, the company deve­lops and manu­fac­tures high-speed engi­nes and propul­sion systems for ships, power gene­ra­tion, heavy land and rail vehic­les, mili­tary vehic­les and the oil and gas indus­try. Rolls-Royce Power Systems is head­quar­te­red in Fried­richs­ha­fen and employs more than 10,000 people worldwide.

Head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart, Germany, L’Orange has appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 employees, most of whom are in Germany, but also in the U.S. and China. L’Orange is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of elec­tro­ni­cally control­led high-pres­sure injec­tion systems for off-high­way diesel and heavy fuel oil engines.

Advi­sors to Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG: DLA Piper
The core team of DLA Piper under the global lead of part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran consis­ted of part­ner Dr. Daniel Weiß, coun­sel Sebas­tian Decker (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and senior asso­ciate Olga Blaszcyk (Commer­cial, Munich). Further­more, the part­ners Dr. Thilo von Bodun­gen (Commer­cial, Munich), Dr. Kai Boden­stedt (Labor Law, Hamburg), Dr. Konrad Rohde (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Jan Joachim Dreyer (Anti­trust Law) and Dr. Andreas Meyer-Land­rut (Corpo­rate, both Colo­gne), the Coun­sel Dr. Isaschar Nico­lay­sen (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Sebas­tian Kost (Tax, Munich), Dr. Anne­ma­rie Bloß (IPT), Dr. Henri­ette Norda (Labor Law, both Hamburg), Dr. Enno Ahlen­stiel, Dr. Thilo Streit (both Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory, Colo­gne) and Bernd Siebers (IPT, Munich), Senior Asso­cia­tes Katha­rina Minski (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Dr. Constanze Krenz (IPT, both Munich) as well as Asso­cia­tes Sophie von Mandels­loh, Died­rich Schrö­der (both Corporate/M&A), Nils Gruni­cke (Labor Law, all Hamburg), Dr. Berit Geue­nich-Schmitt (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory) and Huber­tus Neu (Corpo­rate, both Colo­gne). Also invol­ved from DLA Piper’s inter­na­tio­nal offices were Alex­an­dra Kamer­ling (Part­ner), Martin Strom (Asso­ciate, both Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Andrew Weil (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Chicago) and Peng Tao (Legal Consul­tant, Tax, Hong Kong).

The Rolls-Royce in-house legal team was led by Dr. Thomas Karst (Gene­ral Coun­sel, Chief Inte­grity & Compli­ance Offi­cer, Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG) and Ben Hors­ley (Chief Coun­sel M&A, Rolls-Royce plc.).