KATHREIN sells mobile communications antenna and filter business to Ericsson

Frank­furt am Main -Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed commu­ni­ca­ti­ons tech­no­logy specia­list KATHREIN SE on the sale of its mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons antenna and filter busi­ness to Swedish tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons equip­ment supplier Erics­son. The closing of the shell purchase agree­ment alre­ady concluded in Febru­ary, on the basis of which indi­vi­dual asset deals in a number of juris­dic­tions were linked, took place as plan­ned on Octo­ber 1, 2019.

The sale is an essen­tial part of a long-term down­si­zing of the KATHREIN Group. After beco­ming inde­pen­dent, the remai­ning subsi­dia­ries will operate under the names KATHREIN Solu­ti­ons GmbH, KATHREIN Sach­sen GmbH, KATHREIN Digi­tal Systems GmbH and KATHREIN Broad­cast GmbH. Thus, the restruc­tu­ring of the KATHREIN Group is largely completed.

Follo­wing the announce­ment of the sale of the mobile antenna and filter busi­ness from KATHREIN SE to Erics­son on Febru­ary 25, 2019, the sale was offi­ci­ally comple­ted with the comple­tion of all regu­la­tory appr­oval proce­du­res on Septem­ber 30, 2019. Erics­son thus expands its radio system port­fo­lio with a wide range of advan­ced antenna solu­ti­ons. Nearly 3,500 KATHREIN employees world­wide will trans­fer to Ericsson.

The Allen & Overy team, led by restruc­tu­ring part­ner Peter Hoegen, advi­sed in parti­cu­lar on the amend­ment of the finan­cing docu­men­ta­tion with a syndi­cate of banks in Germany and a bila­te­ral bank in Mexico requi­red due to the closing of the tran­sac­tion. Another focus of acti­vity was the nego­tia­tion and conclu­sion of various colla­te­ral release agree­ments in Germany, Mexico, Roma­nia and the USA.
The Allen & Overy team included part­ner Peter Hoegen (lead), senior asso­ciate Dr. Chris­to­pher Kranz, asso­cia­tes Moritz Probst, Evan­ge­lina Wiegand and Simon Kirsch­ner (all banking and finance/restructuring, Frankfurt).
Further­more, KATHREIN was repre­sen­ted by Noerr LLP (Prof. Dr. Chris­tian Pleis­ter, Kenny Koa), Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger LLP (Dr. Chris­tian Sister­mann, Dr. David Beutel, Dr. Martin Rehberg).

Ziems & Part­ner (Hans-Joachim Ziems, Elmar Geis­sin­ger, Stephan Maas, Marcus Mertens) had over­all respon­si­bi­lity for the tran­sac­tion as part of the ongo­ing restructuring.
The banking consor­tium was advi­sed by Latham & Watkins LLP (Dr. Jörn Kowa­lew­ski, Dr. Daniel Splitt­ger­ber, Dr. Ann-Sophie Rosenhagen).
Allen & Overy had alre­ady advi­sed Rosen­heim-based KATH­­REIN-Werke KG in 2018 on the conclu­sion of a restruc­tu­ring agree­ment and a restruc­tu­ring loan agree­ment. The agree­ment concluded at the end of March 2018 prepared the ground for a consen­sual restruc­tu­ring of the KATHREIN Group, which KATH­­REIN-Werke KG and its legal succes­sor, KATHREIN SE, had agreed upon with their main finan­ciers. In addi­tion, the Allen & Overy team had also advi­sed KATHREIN SE in 2018/2019 on the sale of KATHREIN Auto­mo­tive GmbH, a specia­list in trans­mis­sion and recep­tion systems for vehic­les based in Hildes­heim, to the auto­mo­tive supplier Continental.