1.    Scottish Government – Acquisition of Glasgow Prestwick Airport

Working to very short timescales, we acted for the Scottish Government in the completion of its high profile acquisition of Glasgow Prestwick Airport from New Zealand based infrastructure fund, Infratil.  It was our first Corporate Finance instruction from the Scottish Government since winning a panel appointment.

The deal involved a multi-disciplinary team from across many specialism's including Real Estate, Public Sector, Intellectual Property, Corporate Tax, Environment, Pensions and Employment.  As well as having to take into account transaction related issues the team were required to consider the complexities added to the deal by the nature of the identity of the purchaser.

Feedback from the client was very positive (Scottish Government policy however is not to provide any public comment).

2.    Sale of Gothia Financial Group AS to arvato AG

A multi-disciplinary team acted for Herkules Capital (the leading Norwegian Private Equity firm with a total capital base of NOK 12.25 billion) in all UK aspects of the sale of Gothia Financial Group AS to arvato AG.  This instruction came on the back of 6 years of deal-making for BCW, and we were delighted to be instructed by Herkules in connection with their exit, having sold the BCW business to it in 2010.  This was a very high value and multi-jurisdictional deal where we were often called on at short notice to give urgent advice.
 

During September we acted for long-standing client Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad in relation to the recovery of sums from the Picsel Software Group. This complex transaction has involved, (as at time of writing) insolvency and IP advice in relation to Scotland, England, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Malta, Korea and Japan and we have been greatly assisted by GTG Advocates in Valetta. Hopefully by the time you are reading this we may have managed to realise the value of the assets! However that depends on the outcome of Primary Insolvency Proceedings under the EU Regulations in Malta, our having the curious position of having achieved insolvency appointments under Secondary Proceedings before we had done so under the Primary ones.

In August, Senior Partner and head of our IPTC Group, David Flint attended the American Bar Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, where two publications with substantial input from MacRoberts IPTC team were launched. One was an IP Deskbook for Lawyers (3rd Ed) and the other a Guide to Legal issues RFID and NFC Technology, co-written with IPTC Partner Val Surgenor.