Contacts:
George Casey, M&A partner, (+ 44 20 7655 5065)
Bonnie Greaves, M&A partner, (+ 44 20 7655 5550)
Chris Bright, Antitrust partner, (+ 44 20 7655 5163)
Leigh Cook, Media & Marketing Manager, London, (+ 44 20 7655 5045)
London, 3 Sep 2003 — Shearman & Sterling LLP's Paris and London offices are advising France Telecom on its bid to take full control of Orange, which was announced this week.
Under the terms of the deal, minority shareholders in Orange are to be bought out by France Telecom in a €7 billion all share deal. France Telecom is offering, for the 13 per cent of Orange it does not own, 11 of its own shares for every 25 Orange shares. The exchange offer is scheduled to close on 7 October and settle on 24 October. Shearman & Sterling also advised France Telecom on the repurchase, through an auction process, of certain bonds redeemable in shares, for a nominal amount of approximately €750 million.
The Shearman & Sterling team was led in Paris by capital markets partner Hervé Letréguilly and tax partner Isabelle Chauvet, assisted by European counsel Christophe Clerc and associates Thomas Bieder, Françoise Even, Arnaud Félix, Emmanuel Galifer, Bertrand Sénéchal, Barbara Streichenberger, Caroline Teisseire and Xavier Vamparys, and a US capital markets team. In London, partners Bonnie Greaves and George Casey (US M&A), Jonathan Coppin (UK M&A) and Barney Reynolds (UK financial institutions advisory) were assisted by associates Babett Carrier, Michael Helsel, Nathan Sawyer, Kathryn Thomas, Zia Haider Rahman and Kiran Mehta.
In the second deal, General Electric's €2 billion acquisition of the Finnish medical equipment maker Instrumentarium was approved by the European Commission yesterday. This extremely challenging transaction is particularly noteworthy as it is the highest profile European approval for GE since the Commission blocked its acquisition of Honeywell in 2001.
The decision by the Commission today completes over a year's work for Instrumentarium by Shearman & Sterling's London competition team, which was led by partner Chris Bright, assisted by Elizabeth Harwick, Nathy Dunleavy, and Mikael Persson. London partner Bonnie Greaves led the M&A team, which included partner George Casey and associate Michael Helsel.
GE still needs to obtain US clearance for the acquisition, and the decision is expected within the next few weeks. The US team is being led by Wayne Dale Collins and includes Lisl Dunlop (New York) and Julia Kupfer (Washington DC).
Shearman & Sterling previously advised Instrumentarium on its acquisition of the monitor manufacturer Spacelabs last year.
Finally, Shearman & Sterling is advising the French aluminium group Pechiney on the hostile bid by Alcan. The team is being led by London M&A partner George Casey and includes London associates Brett Carron and Robert Katz , as well as corporate partner Robert Ellison. The antitrust team is led by partner W. Dale Collins in New York with the assistance of Washington associate Jim O'Connell.