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Raft of firms called in for $14.5bn Nord Anglia acquisition
Latham, Cravath, Ropes and Debevoise act on international school operator’s acquisition by consortium
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Latham & Watkins, Cravath Swaine & Moore, Ropes and Gray and Debevoise & Plimpton are steering Nord Anglia Education’s $14.5bn acquisition by a consortium formed by Swedish investment firm EQT, Neuberger Berman Private Markets and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments).
Latham has advised existing owners EQT, CPP Investments and Nord Anglia Education on the sale to the consortium. EQT and CPP Investments will remain shareholders in the company through a new fund investment and reinvestment, respectively.
Cravath is representing Neuberger Berman on the deal, while Ropes and Debevoise are advising EQT.
The consortium will own a majority stake in London-based Nord Anglia, which operates more than 80 schools in 33 countries and educates more than 85,000 students.
Latham’s cross-border team was led by London corporate partners David Walker and Suneel Basson-Bhatoa, supported by Hong Kong corporate partners Dominik Sklenar and Simon Cooke. Other partners on the deal included Nicole Fanjul, Ian Lachow, Peter Sluka, Stelios Saffos and Salvatore Vanchieri (all finance), Aoife McCabe and Katherine Moir (both tax), Christian McDermott (IP), Gail Crawford (data privacy), Rob Price and Olga Ponomarenko (both sanctions and Russian corporate matters), Nathan Seltzer (anti-bribery and corruption matters), Sarah Gadd (pensions, employment and benefits) and Quentin Gwyer (real estate).
The Cravath team acting for Neuberger Berman was led by partners Peter Feist and Jihyun Chung on M&A matters and partner Arvind Ravichandran on tax matters.
Meantime Ropes’ team was led by private equity partners Elizabeth Todd and Shona Ha and tax partner Andrew Howard with support from asset management partner Eve Ellis.
Last year the firm also advised EQT in partnership with Nord Anglia on its $1.25bn acquisition of IMG Academy.
EQT first invested in Nord Anglia in 2008. EQT’s current Asia team, formerly Baring Private Equity Asia, floated the company in a New York IPO in 2014 and took it private three years later with CPP Investments in a deal that valued it at $4.3bn.
Latham advised Nord Anglia on the go-private deal, while Weil Gotshal & Manges acted for the consortium that consisted of Baring Private Equity Asia and CPP Investments, and Ropes & Gray advised CPP Investments.
Reuters reported that the equity portion of Nord Anglia’s acquisition amounts to about $10bn and that more investors could join.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are serving as lead financial advisors to Nord Anglia on the deal, while Lazard is serving as private capital advisor and Deutsche Bank and HSBC are serving as financial advisors.
