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Stéphane Collin

Partner
Lawyer

Picture of Stéphane Collin

Stéphane Collin

Partner
Lawyer

Contact
T +32 2 743 69 27
F +32 2 743 69 01
CMS DeBacker
Chaussée de La Hulpe 178
1170 Brussels
Belgium
Languages French, Dutch, English

Stéphane Collin’s main focus is on private and public company restructuring where he regularly advises Belgian and foreign groups of companies on their equity (merger, contribution and transfer of branch operation, demerger of companies) and non-equity reorganisation or partnership.

He has particular expertise of the steel and cement industry and has acted for several partnerships and construction projects in these sectors.

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Relevant experience

  • Advising a European steel group on the conclusion of a joint venture with a Russian steel group
  • Advising on the conclusion of several joint ventures regarding the building of wind farms in Wallonia
  • Acting for a steel company in the revamping of a high furnace
  • Acting for a concrete company in the construction of a new concrete plant
  • Advising on the merger of public companies (“Intercommunales”) in Wallonia
  • Advising on the conclusion of a partnership regarding the construction of a power plant
  • Acting for a French pharmaceutical group in the reorganisation of the group’s Belgian companies
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Education

  • 1998 - University of Brussels, ULB (Law Degree)
  • 1999 - University of Brussels, KUB (Postgraduate in IP & IT Law)
  • 1999 - Bar admission (Brussels, Belgium)
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Publications

  • S. Collin and M. Comans, “Cross-border mergers after Brexit with Belgium”, Thomson Reuters Practical Law, published on 27 September 2018, (www.practicallaw.com/w-016-8013).
  • "Les entreprises conjointes ou 'joint-ventures'", by Stéphane Collin and his department, Guide juridique de l'entreprise, Livre XVIII, Ed. Kluwer, Brussels, 4th edition, 2012
  • “La protection de l’actionnaire minoritaire en droit belge”, with Jean-François Goffin, Brussels, Kluwer, 2000
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Lectures list

  • « Réalisation et conséquences juridiques d'une opération de fusion-acquisition », by Stéphane Collin and Jelena Janjevic, seminar organised by Vanham & Vanham, "Fusions, acquisitions et restructurations de sociétés : Actualités en droit des sociétés et en droit fiscal", on 3 April 2014
  • “Aspects légaux de la tenue du conseil d’administration, Droits et devoirs de l’administrateur & Responsabilités de l’administrateur”, since 2004, formation organised by the Solvay Business School, in partnership with the Association Belge des Administrateurs
  • “Quelles nouvelles contraintes pour les communes, les intercommunales et les administrateurs en matière d’information et de bonne gouvernance?”, 2007, seminar organised by IFE, “Intercommunales: Quels changements depuis le décret du 19/07/2006?” on 25 and 26 September 2007
  • “Droits, devoirs et responsabilités de l’administrateur”, 2004, with Jean-François Goffin, seminar organised by the Fondation des Administrateurs on 15 January 2004
  • “Quelles responsabilités encourues par les administrateurs et membres du comité de direction? Comment aménager leurs responsabilités?”, 2004, seminar organised by IFE, “Le conseil d’administration”, on 1 December 2004
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Expertise

Sep 2018
CMS European M&A Out­look
Wel­come to the sixth edi­tion of the CMS European M&A Out­look, pub­lished in as­so­ci­ation with Mer­ger­mar­ket.560340ht­tps://me­dia.cmsleg­al.com/me­dia/em­bed?key=359d53310ff19bdc048fb1438aec07d0&unique_key=40f0ab7fd6ab47cd40a6d4555ce3a7f8&width=720&height=405&auto­play=false&auto­light­soff=false&loop=false&clean1al­wayseznode://499576The op­tim­ism amongst deal­makers we re­por­ted in au­tumn last year was well-foun­ded: the mar­ket has re­mained buoy­ant but the ques­tion now is can this op­tim­ism sur­vive in the cur­rent frac­tious in­ter­na­tion­al polit­ic­al en­vir­on­ment?Our for­ward-look­ing sur­vey paints a more nu­anced pic­ture than 12 months ago. For many, the sunny up­lands of M&A activ­ity are still in sight with cash-rich do­mest­ic and in­ter­na­tion­al ac­quirers, an on­go­ing drive for con­sol­id­a­tion and an ap­pet­ite for large trans­form­a­tion­al deals driv­ing the mar­ket in the year ahead. Oth­ers, how­ever, ques­tion this op­tim­ism and those ex­pect­ing European M&A to slow and fin­an­cial con­di­tions to worsen have mul­ti­plied, re­flect­ing more mod­er­ate GDP growth but per­haps more sig­ni­fic­antly, con­cern around geo­pol­it­ic­al risk and stock mar­ket volat­il­ity.Key find­ings from our re­search in­clude:M&A con­fid­ence rising. Nearly three-quar­ters of re­spond­ents are con­sid­er­ing a deal in the next 12 months and nearly 25% ex­pect European M&A to in­crease sig­ni­fic­antly (both up from last year’s sur­vey) show­ing con­fid­ence in the mar­ket is still ro­bust.Ap­pet­ite high among over­seas buy­ers. Re­spond­ents pre­dict that over­seas buy­ers will show grow­ing in­terest in the European mar­ket with the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­ity (92%) ex­pect­ing an in­crease in the num­ber of in­bound trans­ac­tions and nearly two-thirds an­ti­cip­at­ing a fur­ther up-tick in ag­greg­ate in­bound M&A in value for the year ahead.Fin­an­cing con­di­tions re­main buoy­ant. Fin­an­cing op­tions have mul­ti­plied as bank lend­ing cred­it stand­ards and terms and con­di­tions con­tin­ue to ease. Debt cap­it­al mar­kets are more li­quid and private debt and PE funds con­tin­ue to draw in cap­it­al.Our fea­tures in this year’s re­port in­clude art­icles on “Key trends af­fect­ing the European com­pli­ance and reg­u­lat­ory en­vir­on­ment” and, of par­tic­u­lar in­terest in these cur­rent un­cer­tain times, “The rise of pro­tec­tion­ist meas­ures” with­in the EU and oth­er European jur­is­dic­tions.We hope you find the European M&A Out­look in­ter­est­ing and by all means share the re­port with your col­leagues. Our an­nu­al CMS European M&A Study will be pub­lished in spring 2019 when we will re­port back on how this buoy­ant mar­ket has im­pacted M&A trans­ac­tion terms and con­di­tions.
Guide
06/04/2016
CMS European M&A Study 2016
2015 was a land­mark year for M & A. There were sev­er­al in­dustry game-chan­ging deals. Each of the first three quar­ters of 2015 saw European M&A deal value ex­ceed­ing EUR 170bn cul­min­at­ing in Q4 2015 be­ing the highest ever deal value quarter for Europe (EUR 420bn), and 2015 be­ing a re­cord year for glob­al M&A.Europe had a re­cord year with deal value up 22% to EUR 990bn al­though volume was slightly down by 6% to 6,200 deals. There was a sig­ni­fic­ant im­bal­ance between in­bound and out­bound activ­ity with ag­gress­ive US in­vest­ment fuel­ling a 54% in­crease in European in­bound M&A but a weak Euro con­trib­ut­ing to a 27% de­crease in European out­bound M&A. 2015 also saw in­creased activ­ity from private equity and oth­er fin­an­cial in­vestors, both as buy­ers and sellers. Europe main­tained a healthy 25% share in the glob­al M&A mar­ket.As we move in­to 2016, we see vari­ous grey or black swans. There is the long pre­dicted slow­down of the rate of eco­nom­ic growth in China; the greatest mi­gra­tion to Europe for a cen­tury across a fra­gile Schen­gen zone; in­terest rate rises in the US and a clamp­down on in­ver­sion deals; a US pres­id­en­tial elec­tion with the pos­sib­il­ity of one of the most di­vis­ive can­did­ates in US elec­tion his­tory; a more ag­gress­ive cor­por­ate tax cli­mate; a ground break­ing EU in / out ref­er­en­dum in the UK which could change the polit­ic­al face of Europe; and the dark shad­ow of on­go­ing ter­ror­ist threats.Yet ma­jor stra­tegic moves made in so many in­dus­tries are bound to eli­cit a forth­right re­sponse from com­pet­it­ors. Fund­ing ca­pa­city re­mains strong whilst the low oil price (a great threat to the oil in­dustry it­self) provides an ad­vant­age to man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­tries.Op­por­tun­it­ies for de­cis­ive M&A con­tin­ue.Our new CMS European M&A Study 2016 cov­ers nearly 2,800 deals and we fo­cus on the 391 CMS deals in 2015 and the 1,654 CMS deals in the peri­od 2010 – 2014 by way of com­par­is­on. We have also in­tro­duced some new fea­tures and trust that the Study will as­sist you in your every­day M&A life.
Guide

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5/12/2019
CMS re­cog­nised for out­stand­ing M&A ad­vis­ory work
Press release Corporate/M&A
10 April 2020
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Bel­gian au­thor­it­ies, like some of their European coun­ter­parts, have taken ex­treme meas­ures to fight the spread of Cov­id-19, in­clud­ing re­stric­tions on so­cial gath­er­ings. If these strong meas­ures con­tin­ue...
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European M&A ex­ec­ut­ives cau­tious over deal­mak­ing pro­spects
European M&A Out­look 2019
Press release Corporate/M&A
08 April 2019
Bel­gi­um passes code that re­forms co­oper­at­ives and ab­ol­ishes so­cial pur­pose...
On 28 Feb­ru­ary 2019, the Bel­gian par­lia­ment passed the Code on Com­pan­ies and As­so­ci­ations (CAC), which re­forms the defin­i­tion of a co­oper­at­ive (so­ciétés co­oper­at­ives, co­oper­atieve ven­nootschap­pen),...
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28/02/2019
Cross-bor­der mer­gers with a UK com­pany post-Brexit
Bri­tain is sched­uled to leave the EU – with or without a form­al exit deal – on 29 March 2019. It is there­fore likely that, after that date, there will be sig­ni­fic­ant leg­al im­plic­a­tions for busi­nesses with UK com­pan­ies in Bel­gi­um, al­though the ac­tu­al im­pac
Newsletter Brexit
22 March 2019
EU: Pro­vi­sion­al Agree­ment on Cross-bor­der Mer­gers, De­mer­gers or Trans­fers
On 13 March 2019, the European Com­mis­sion re­leased a state­ment (19/1608) that the European Par­lia­ment and the Mem­ber States have reached a pro­vi­sion­al agree­ment on new rules mak­ing it easi­er for com­pan­ies...
Law-Now Corporate/M&A
23/01/2018
CMS ad­vises on mer­ger of OP­DR and MacAndrews ship­ping lines
French ship­ping com­pany CMA CGM merged its MacAndrews and OP­DR sub­si­di­ar­ies at the end of last year, both of which spe­cial­ise in short-sea routes with­in Europe...
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23/03/2017
CMS European M&A Study: M&A ro­bust in 2016 and con­tinu­ing to provide op­por­tun­it­ies...
Press release Corporate/M&A
21 February 2017
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08/11/2016
Brexit vote dampens deal­mak­ing ex­pect­a­tions, ac­cord­ing to sur­vey by CMS...
CMS European M&A Out­look 2016
Press release Corporate/M&A
01/08/2016
CMS Bel­gi­um as­sisted Del­haize Group on the Bel­gian leg­al as­pects of all...
Deal (News) Corporate/M&A
22/06/2016
CMS as­sisted Lam­piris in the re­struc­tur­ing of its share-own­er­ship
Deal (News) Corporate/M&A
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