Management buy-out at NSO Group with Novalpina Capital

Frank­furt a. M. — Noval­pina Capi­tal has finan­ced the foun­ders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie and the manage­ment of NSO Group in their buy-out and advi­sed them on the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other share­hol­ders. — NSO Group is a leading global cyber secu­rity company head­quar­te­red in Luxem­bourg with addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons world­wide (inclu­ding Israel, Cyprus and Bulgaria).

Noval­pina Capi­tal Capi­tal was advi­sed by the Frank­furt, Munich, London and Boston offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the buyout led by the manage­ment of NSO Group and the acqui­si­tion of NSO Group from Fran­cisco Part­ners and other shareholders.

The manage­ment team and foun­ders of NSO Group today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of the company from global private equity firm Fran­cisco Part­ners. NSO Group deve­lops tech­no­logy that helps govern­ment intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment agen­cies prevent and inves­ti­gate terro­rism and crime to save lives. Estab­lished from the combi­na­tion of Israeli and Euro­pean cyber tech­no­logy compa­nies, NSO Group has since become a global leader in provi­ding cyber intel­li­gence and analy­tics solu­ti­ons to govern­ments. The company has grown rapidly and finis­hed 2018 with reve­nues of $250 million, and dozens of licen­sed customers.

Advi­sors to Noval­pina Capi­tal: Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Weil tran­sac­tion team is led by part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), as well as Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Madleen Düdder, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Daniel Zhu, Andreas Fogel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Julia Hübner, Alisa Preis­sler, Kai Yan (all Tax Frank­furt) as well as Boston part­ner Matthew Goul­ding and asso­ciate Michael Messina (both Corporate).
The Weil team invol­ved in the acqui­si­tion finan­cing is led by Frank­furt Finance Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Distler and London Finance Part­ner Tom Richards and was supported by Asso­cia­tes Thomas Zimmer­mann (Munich) and Julia Tschi­ckardt (Frank­furt) as well as Alis­tair McVeigh and Conor Camp­bell (both London).
Fran­cisco Part­ners was assis­ted in the tran­sac­tion by Paul Hastings (part­ners Mike J. Kennedy and Jeffrey C. Wolff, San Fran­cisco office).
The foun­ders of NSO Group relied on part­ners Roy Caner and Viva Gayer of EBN & Co. in Tel Aviv.

About Weil
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding about 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frankfurt/Main, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.