BMW and Mercedes-Benz sell Share Now to Stellantis subsidiary Free2move

Paris/ Frank­furt — BMW and Merce­­des-Benz are selling their joint car-sharing subsi­diary “Share Now”, foun­ded in 2019, to the French-Italian car group Stellan­tis. Through the sale, they want to have more funds for other projects. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the merger control authorities.

Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) on the acqui­si­tion of Share Now, a joint venture between BMW Group and Merce­­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG formed in 2019.

Advi­sors BMW Group and Merce­­des-Benz Mobi­lity AG: Hogan Lovells
Niko­las Zirn­gibl (Part­ner, Munich) and Thiemo Woertge (Asso­ciate, Munich) on corporate/M&A aspects; Falk Loose (Part­ner, Munich) on tax aspects; Falk Schoe­ning (Part­ner, Munich) on merger control aspects.

Free2move (Stellan­tis Group) was advi­sed by the follo­wing Bird & Bird attorneys:

France: Inter­na­tio­nal Lead and Coor­di­na­tion Carole Bodin (Part­ner), Sofia El Biyed and Céline Sol (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Anne-Char­­lotte Le Bihan (Part­ner) and Claire Bratel (Asso­ciate), both IP, Ariane Mole (Part­ner), Oriane Zubce­vic and Marine Besson (Asso­cia­tes), all Data Protec­tion, Boris Martor (Part­ner) and Raphael Weiss (Asso­ciate), both Regu­la­tory; Alex­andre Vuchot (Part­ner), Stéphane Leri­che (Asso­ciate) and Sacha Bettach (Asso­ciate), all Commercial/Tech & Comms, all Paris.

Germany: led by Dr. Kai Kerger (Part­ner), Johanna Schind­ler and Tamara Böhmert (Asso­cia­tes), all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt, Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg (Part­ner, Munich) and Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen (Part­ner, Hamburg), both Commercial/Tech & Comms, Dr. Markus Körner (Part­ner, Munich), IP;Dr. Matthias Lang (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf) Regu­la­tion; Dr. Barbara Geck (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Labor Law.

Spain, Italy, Nether­lands: Lour­des Ayala (Part­ner, Madrid), Alberto Salvadé (Part­ner, Milan) and Pauline Vos (Part­ner — The Hague) all Corporate/M&A coor­di­na­ted the audits in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Racine acted with Bastien Thomas (Part­ner), Fran­çois Aubin and Céci­lia Pataut (Asso­cia­tes) as advi­sors to Free2move on merger control aspects.

PwC advi­sed Free2Move on the tax aspects of the tran­sac­tion with Delphine Bocquet (Part­ner, Paris) and Julien Marti­nez (Asso­cia­tes, Paris), Ralf Ulrich Brau­na­gel (Part­ner, Frank­furt) and Wiebke Henning (Asso­cia­tes, Frank­furt) and on the employ­ment aspects with Fanny Marchiset (Part­ner, Paris).