Bird & Bird has advised Equistone Partners Europe on its recent acquisition of Eperi GmbH as a new portfolio company.
Based in the Rhine-Main area of Germany, Eperi GmbH is a leading provider of data security and compliance as well as cybersecurity solutions. Through its secured gateway, the company enables it customers to use cloud applications such as MS365 and Salesforce safely and legally compliant with e.g. GDPR and Schrems II while preserving the functionality of the secured applications. The company’s solutions are easy to deploy in on-premise, hybrid-, and multi-cloud environments. Eperi GmbH has a particular focus on data encryption for cloud applications for their international customer base consisting of large companies from the financial, healthcare and industrial sectors.
Equistone is currently expanding its traditional company portfolio with the additions of high-growth and future-oriented IT companies. The goal of this partnership is to enhance the strong market position of Eperi GmbH through scaling the organization, a dedicated buy-and-build strategy, and further internationalising Eperi GmbH. The seller and founder of Eperi GmbH will continue to act as managing director and will retain a significant stake of shares in the company.
Bird & Bird advised Equistone in cooperation with P+P Pöllath + Partners in the legal due diligence and the negotiation of the transaction documentation. Bird & Bird’s main focus was on the complex IT and IP related matters due to the leading expertise in this practice as well as the FDI assessment for the fund’s long-term strategy with the acquisition and the FDI clearance with the German Department of Economics.
Equistone Partners was advised by the following Bird & Bird lawyers: lead partner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. and associate Michael Maier (both Corporate/ Private Equity, Frankfurt); partner Dr. Alexander Duisberg and associate Gökhan Kosak (both IT/Data Protection, Munich); partner Dr. Stephan Waldheim and Tamy Tietze (both Competition & EU, Dusseldorf); partner Dr. Christoph Maierhöfer (IP, Munich); partner Dr. Catharina Klumpp, LL.M. and associate Julia Neuper (both Employment, Düsseldorf); as well as partner Guido Bormann and associate Johannes Woltering (both Public Commercial and Regulatory law, Dusseldorf).
