Corporate / M&A

Lab14 GmbH, a port­fo­lio com­pany of RS­BG SE, the in­vest­ment com­pany of the RAG-Found­a­tion, ac­quires a ma­jor­ity stake in Li­estal-based Nanos­urf AG. Zurich, 26 Janu­ary 2023 

26 Janu­ary 2023On 1 Janu­ary 2023, after a long last­ing polit­ic­al pro­cess, the new cor­por­ate law (amend­ment of the Swiss Code of Ob­lig­a­tions) has come in­to force. In ad­di­tion to cla­ri­fic­a­tions and ad­min­is­trat­ive sim­pli­fic­a­tions, the re­vi­sion of the cor­por­ate law aims, among oth­er things, to make the in­cor­por­a­tion and cap­it­al reg­u­la­tions more flex­ible and to align them with the ac­count­ing law, to mod­ern­ize the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing the board of dir­ect­ors and the gen­er­al meet­ing of share­hold­ers, and to strengthen share­hold­er rights. In ad­di­tion, the re­vised law ex­pressly al­lows the in­tro­duc­tion of an ar­bit­ra­tion clause in the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation.Be­low you will find an over­view of the most im­port­ant changes.

The Swiss in­vestor Capvis, which spe­cial­ises in me­di­um-sized in­vest­ments, ac­quires a ma­jor­ity stake in the Lu­cerne-based SCHURTER Group. The found­ing and pre­vi­ous own­er fam­ily con­tin­ues to hold a stake in the com­pany and is rep­res­en­ted on the board of dir­ect­ors by Thomas Schurter.

Zurich, 4 Janu­ary 2023 Bruker Cor­por­a­tion, a NAS­DAQ-lis­ted US tech com­pany, has entered in­to a part­ner­ship with Swiss firm Biognosys AG to de­liv­er ad­vanced pro­teo­m­ics CRO ser­vices for US bio­pharma and bio­mark­er cus­tom­ers. As part of the part­ner­ship, Bruker has made a ma­jor­ity-own­er­ship in­vest­ment in Biognosys AG. Biognosys is a lead­er in the de­vel­op­ment of pro­teo­m­ics tech­no­lo­gies and solu­tions for phar­ma­ceut­ic­al and bi­otech re­search. The stra­tegic part­ner­ship is ex­pec­ted to cre­ate unique syn­er­gies between Biognosys’ port­fo­lio of pro­teo­m­ics ser­vices, soft­ware and kits, and Bruker’s pi­on­eer­ing tim­sTOF plat­form. As a res­ult of the part­ner­ship, Biognosys plans to open its first ad­vanced pro­teo­m­ics CRO ser­vices labor­at­ory in the US. De­tails of the trans­ac­tion were not dis­closed.An in­ter­na­tion­al CMS team headed by Stefan Brunnsch­weiler and Dr Hendrik Hirsch ad­vised Bruker on all leg­al as­pects of the trans­ac­tion. Bruker has also re­lied on the ex­pert­ise of CMS in the past. Pre­vi­ous work by CMS for Bruker Cor­por­a­tion in­cluded provid­ing leg­al ad­vice on the com­pany’s in­vest­ment in PreO­m­ics.CMS Switzer­land­Stefan Brunnsch­weiler, Lead Part­ner, Zurich, Cor­por­ate / M&AAndrea Relly, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&ASamuel Fe­lix Gang, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&APas­cal Stock­er, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&AAnna Mast, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&ADr Si­mone Brauch­bar Birkhäuser, Part­ner, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty­Mark Ca­gi­enard, Part­ner, Tax­Sarah Keller, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Em­ploy­ment & Pen­sion­sHadi Mirzai, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Life Sci­ences and Com­pet­i­tion­Valentina Bal­aj, As­so­ci­ate, Reg­u­lat­ory / Com­pli­anceCMS Ger­manyDr Hendrik Hirsch, Lead Part­ner, Frank­furt/Main, Cor­por­ate/M&ADr Ber­rit Roth-Min­gram, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Frank­furt/Main, Cor­por­ate/M&ADr Thomas Hirse, Part­ner, Dus­sel­dorf, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­tyS­ven Krause, Seni­or As­so­ci­ate, Dus­sel­dorf, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­erty

9. Dezem­ber 2022DER Tour­istik Suisse AG has sold a minor­ity stake in RAIL­TOUR (SUISSE) SA to ÖBB sub­si­di­ary Rail Tours Tour­istik GmbH.With this step, DER Tour­istik Suisse AG aims to ex­pand the rail ex­pert­ise of its sub­si­di­ary RAIL­TOUR (SUISSE) SA in the growth mar­ket for sus­tain­able rail travel. The co­oper­a­tion with ÖBB is also in­ten­ded to strengthen RAIL­TOUR (SUISSE) SA in the de­vel­op­ment of its sales ex­pert­ise and ac­cess to new cus­tom­er groups.DER Tour­istik Suisse AG is a mar­ket-lead­ing Swiss tour­ism com­pany and cov­ers the en­tire spec­trum of the travel world with its tour op­er­at­ors Kuoni, Hel­vetic Tours and spe­cial­ist tour op­er­at­ors. As part of the DER Tour­istik Group, it be­longs to one of the largest travel groups in Europe. A team from CMS Switzer­land and CMS Ger­many, led by part­ner Stephan Wer­len (CMS Switzer­land), ad­vised DER Tour­istik Suisse AG on all leg­al as­pects of the trans­ac­tion.CMS Switzer­land­Dr Stephan Wer­len, Part­ner, Cor­por­ate / M&AAl­ex­an­dra Stock­er, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&ADa­vid Hürli­mann, Part­ner, TaxJens Lehmann, As­so­ci­ate, TaxDr Dirk Spacek, Part­ner, IP/IT­Marquard Christen, Part­ner, Mer­ger Con­trol­CMS Ger­ma­ny­Chris­toff Hen­rik Soltau, Part­ner, Mer­ger Con­trol

Bruker Cor­por­a­tion, a NAS­DAQ-lis­ted US tech com­pany in the ana­lyt­ic­al in­stru­ment­a­tion sec­tor, in­vests in Nav­ign­ostics. Bruker led the CHF 7.5 mil­lion seed fin­an­cing round, which was also joined by Think.Health Ven­tures, Ven­tura Bio­med In­vestors and Zürch­er Kan­ton­al­bank.Nav­ign­ostics strives to sup­port the se­lec­tion of tar­geted and im­muno-on­co­logy ther­apies tailored to the tu­mour phen­o­type of in­di­vidu­al can­cer pa­tients by us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence driv­en soft­ware com­bined with single-cell re­solved spa­tial pro­teo­m­ic tu­mour data. The fund­ing will strengthen Nav­ign­ostic­s' abil­ity to col­lab­or­ate with clin­ic­al, bi­o­tech­no­logy and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al part­ners and ac­cel­er­ate the de­vel­op­ment of its first dia­gnost­ic product.A team from CMS Switzer­land, led by part­ner Stefan Brunnsch­weiler, ad­vised Bruker on all leg­al mat­ters of the trans­ac­tion. Bruker is a long­stand­ing CMS cli­ent and has been ad­vised by CMS on sev­er­al ac­quis­i­tions and dis­pos­als in the past.CMS Switzer­land­Stefan Brunnsch­weiler, Part­ner, Cor­por­ate / M&APas­cal Stock­er, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&ADr Si­mone Brauch­bar Birkhäuser, Coun­sel, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty­Hadi Mirzai, As­so­ci­ate, Life Sci­ences and Com­pet­i­tion­Sarah Keller, As­so­ci­ate, Em­ploy­ment 

 The glob­al in­nov­a­tion lead­er with tech­no­logy-based ma­ter­i­als and solu­tions, DuPont (NYSE: DD), has di­vested on Novem­ber 1, 2022, the ma­jor­ity of its former Mo­bil­ity & Ma­ter­i­als seg­ment (the “M&M Di­vestit­ure”) to Celanese.Dr Pas­cal Favre led the Geneva team of CMS Switzer­land who ad­vised DuPont Switzer­land and handled all as­pects of the Swiss com­pon­ent of the M&M Di­vestit­ure. The team fur­ther com­prised Audrey Dur­and, Kev­in Mar­cato and Dav­id Müller.For more in­form­a­tion on the trans­ac­tion, please vis­it:  ht­tps://www.dupont.com/news/dupont-com­pletes-mo­bil­ity-ma­ter­i­als-di­vestit­ure-to-celanese.html

The lead­ing fa­cil­ity man­age­ment and work­place ex­per­i­ence com­pany ISS has ac­quired Liv­it FM Ser­vices AG from its pre­vi­ous par­ent com­pany Liv­it AG. Liv­it FM Ser­vices AG looks after a large pro­por­tion of Swiss Life prop­er­ties in Switzer­land. The com­pany has over 670 em­ploy­ees. The takeover of Liv­it FM Ser­vices AG is a stra­tegic ac­quis­i­tion that strengthens ISS Switzer­land's mar­ket po­s­i­tion. The trans­ac­tion will en­able ISS to ex­pand and de­vel­op its ser­vice de­liv­ery to the real es­tate in­dustry seg­ment. The in­teg­ra­tion of the ac­quired com­pany is ex­pec­ted to be com­pleted in the first quarter of 2023. Liv­it FM Ser­vices AG will op­er­ate un­der the ISS brand in the fu­ture.A team of CMS led by Dr Daniel Jenny com­pre­hens­ively ad­vised ISS on all leg­al mat­ters of this trans­ac­tion.CMS Switzer­land­Dr Daniel Jenny, Part­ner, Cor­por­ate/M&ADr Ferdin­and Blezinger, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate/M&AFlori­an Jung, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate/M&AAl­ex­an­dra Stock­er, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate/M&AReto Hun­sper­ger, Part­ner, Com­mer­cialDr Mar­jolaine Jakob, Part­ner, Com­mer­cial­Christina Winter, As­so­ci­ate, Em­ploy­men­tHelena Loretan, As­so­ci­ate, Real Es­tate­M­ark Ca­gi­enard, Part­ner, Tax

Zurich, 28 Oc­to­ber 2022The Voigt Group and PHOENIX Pharma Switzer­land have agreed to merge their sub­si­di­ar­ies, each act­ive in phar­ma­ceut­ic­al lo­gist­ics and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al whole­sale sec­tors re­spect­ively, in­to a 50/50 joint ven­ture. The two long-es­tab­lished and fin­an­cially sound com­pan­ies are an ideal fit with com­ple­ment­ary of­fer­ings and com­pet­en­cies in the sup­ply chain.Sub­ject to ap­prov­al by the Swiss Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion, this joint ven­ture will cre­ate a new, com­pet­ent and sus­tain­able play­er in the sup­ply chain of the Swiss health­care mar­ket.A CMS Switzer­land team led by Dr Patrick Som­mer provided com­pre­hens­ive leg­al ad­vice to Voigt Group on this joint ven­ture.CMS Switzer­land: Dr. Patrick Som­mer, Part­ner, Lead, Cor­por­ate / M&A, Com­pet­i­tion & EU­Alain Raemy, Part­ner, Cor­por­ate / M&AM­arquard Christen, Part­ner, Com­pet­i­tion & EU­Dirk Spacek, Part­ner, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty­Dr Si­mone Brauch­bar Birkhäuser, Coun­sel, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty­Hadi Mirzai, As­so­ci­ate, Life Sci­ences, Com­pet­i­tion & EUAl­ex­an­dra Stock­er, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&AAnna Mast, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&ADr. Mat­thi­as Kuert, As­so­ci­ate, Bank­ing & Fin­an­ceTho­mas Zweifel, As­so­ci­ate, Real Es­tat­e­Christina Winter, As­so­ci­ate, Em­ploy­ment

1. Pro­spect­us re­quire­ment Of­fer to the pub­lic (i.e. an of­fer to an un­lim­ited num­ber of per­sons con­cern­ing the sub­scrip­tion for new se­cur­it­ies or the pur­chase of se­cur­it­ies in Switzer­land).Ap­plic­a­tion...

Vista Klinik Hold­ing AG, dom­i­ciled in Bin­nin­gen (Switzer­land), ac­quired AV­ANTI, Centro Ti­cinese di chirur­gia am­bu­lat­oriale SA (AV­ANTI) on 15 Ju­ly 2022 and is now present in the can­ton of Ti­cino for the first time. AV­ANTI, which was foun­ded in 2007, has three op­er­at­ing rooms with a total area of 605 square metres, as well as a con­vales­cence area and an oph­thal­mo­logy prac­tice spe­cial­ising in ret­in­al treat­ments. AV­ANTI per­forms about 5,000 oph­thal­mo­lo­gic­al op­er­a­tions an­nu­ally. There will be no changes with re­gard to the staff, as they will con­tin­ue to work for AV­ANTI.Fur­ther­more, CMS ad­vised Vista Klinik Hold­ing AG on two oth­er trans­ac­tions in the middle of this year: The pur­chase of all shares in an eye centre with two as­so­ci­ated prac­tices in the can­tons of Aar­gau and Zurich was suc­cess­fully com­pleted, and an­oth­er eye prac­tice in the can­ton of Gris­ons was ac­quired as part of an as­set deal.Vista Au­gen­prax­en & Klinik­en was foun­ded over 30 years ago and con­sists of a net­work of ex­per­i­enced oph­thal­mo­lo­gists and spe­cial­ists with a fo­cus on north­west­ern Switzer­land and the Zurich area. With the afore­men­tioned ac­quis­i­tions, the num­ber of loc­a­tions will be fur­ther in­creased so that the ser­vices of Vista Au­gen­prax­en & Klinik­en can now also be ac­cessed in the Itali­an-speak­ing part of Switzer­land. The range of ser­vices offered by Vista Au­gen­prax­en & Klinik­en in­cludes all treat­ments as well as spe­cial­isa­tions in the field of ret­ina and catar­act op­er­a­tions, the ther­apy of mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion and the cor­rec­tion of re­fract­ive er­rors. In or­der to keep up with the in­ter­na­tion­al state of sci­ence, Vista Au­gen­prax­en & Klinik­en in­vests in for­ward-look­ing re­search activ­it­ies, in the con­tinu­ous train­ing of all em­ploy­ees and in the ex­pan­sion and in­vent­ory of prac­tices and clin­ics.A team of CMS Switzer­land, led by Stefan Brunnsch­weiler and Fran­ziska Ham­mer, ad­vised Vista Au­gen­prax­en & Klinik­en on all leg­al mat­ters of the trans­ac­tions.CMS Switzer­land­Stefan Brunnsch­weiler, Part­ner, Cor­por­ate / M&AFran­ziska Ham­mer, Coun­sel, Cor­por­ate / M&ASamuel Fe­lix Gang, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&AAnna Mast, As­so­ci­ate, Cor­por­ate / M&AMiryam Meile, As­so­ci­ate, Em­ploy­ment­Mar­zia Schil­leci, As­so­ci­ate, Lit­ig­a­tion­Premton Haziri, At­tor­ney Train­ee