A cross-border team has advised John Deere, a US listed company (NYSE: DE), world leader in providing innovative and advanced products and services of superior quality dedicated to cultivating, harvesting, transforming, enriching and building upon the land in the acquisition of Monosem, the European market leader in precision planters.
Monosem is a family-owned company founded in 1948, headquartered in Largeasse, France and has 3 other facilities in its home country, two in the United States, as well as German and Russian distribution subsidiaries. It is admired for its innovation and success in precision planter technology, which enabled it to reach a European leading position now addressing more than 70 markets over the world.
Due to the nature of the parties and the markets addressed, competition was one of the main concerns along with the traditional legal constraints, which resulted in an intense multi-practices team work across several jurisdictions under the lead of David Malcoiffe:
The transaction was signed on October 29th, 2015, and the closing occurred on February 3rd, 2016.
On the side of the sellers, the shareholders of the Monosem group were assisted by STCPartners on legal, tax and labor law matters pertaining to this transfer.
The team of STCPartners was composed of Christine Le Breton, Partner, Mehdi Ouchallal, Of Counsel, and Alexia Angiléri, Associate, for legal aspects, of Pierre Bouley and Denis Fontaine-Besset, Partners, and Annaelle Lousquy, Associate, for tax issues, of Angélique Vibert for intellectual property aspects, and of Etienne Pujol, Partner, and Stéphanie Fauconnier, Associate, for labor law aspects.
Natixis (Bruno Stern, Thomas Laroque, Simon Le Guillou) was involved on the seller’s side in its capacity as investment bank.
