15th edition of CMS European M&A Study is available now

This Ex­pert Guide provides an over­view of cryptoasset reg­u­la­tion (pri­or to the in­tro­duc­tion of MiCA), fo­cus­sing at this point on European jur­is­dic­tions, both in­side and out­side the EU. We sum­mar­ise the...

We are very pleased to share with you the second edi­tion of the CMS European Private Equity Study 2023.This study ana­lyses hun­dreds of Private Equity deals that we ad­vised on in 2022 and pre­vi­ous years, provid­ing unique in­sights in­to mar­ket trends and dif­fer­ences between private equity and trade deals. Key find­ings: Deal activ­ity re­mained strong un­til Q3 2022, but ex­per­i­enced a sig­ni­fic­ant drop in Q4.New in­vest­ments ac­coun­ted for 85% of PE deals ana­lysed, with few­er exits and sec­ond­ary buy-outs in 2022 com­pared to 2021.Bid­ding pro­cesses de­creased in 2022, po­ten­tially due to less in­volve­ment of PE funds on the sell-side.Entry in­to new mar­kets was the most com­mon deal driver (64% of deals), while di­git­al­isa­tion was no longer a deal driver­Tech­no­logy, me­dia, and tele­coms (TMT) was the busiest sec­tor, fol­lowed by Real Es­tate & Con­struc­tion and life sci­ences.Use of MAC clauses de­creased to 10% in 2022, com­pared to 15% in 2021.Few­er FDI ap­provals or clear­ances were sought in 2022 (8%) com­pared to 2021 (15%).W&I in­sur­ance played a prom­in­ent role in PE M&A trans­ac­tions, in­creas­ing with deal value.Locked box mech­an­isms for set­ting pur­chase price were pre­ferred in 80% of PE deals, while pur­chase price ad­just­ments de­creased.Earn-out pro­vi­sions in­creased over­all in 2022 but were more com­mon in smal­ler deals than high­er value deals.ESG con­sid­er­a­tions have not yet fea­tured in leg­al due di­li­gence or trans­ac­tion doc­u­ments.Man­age­ment in­cent­ive schemes saw short­er vest­ing peri­ods, in­creased man­age­ment al­loc­a­tion, but tightened leav­er pro­vi­sions.Over­all, there were buy­er-friendly de­vel­op­ments in some deal met­rics, such as the use of "tip­ping" bas­kets.

26.05.2023

The European Par­lia­ment's ap­prov­al of new crypto li­cens­ing reg­u­la­tions has been largely well-re­ceived by the in­dustry, mark­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant first step to­wards a uni­formly reg­u­lated di­git­al as­set mar­ket. The an­ti­cip­ated Mar­kets in Crypto As­sets (MiCA) reg­u­la­tion, de­signed to safe­guard con­sumers and main­tain fin­an­cial sta­bil­ity, is set to come in­to ef­fect in mid-2024, a move that has garnered ini­tial pos­it­ive re­sponses.While MiCA ap­plies ex­clus­ively in the European Uni­on (EU), its glob­al rel­ev­ance is un­deni­able. It po­s­i­tions the EU as a lead­er in man­aging this com­plex do­main, provid­ing the world with a reg­u­lat­ory frame­work for fur­ther re­fine­ment.Con­sequently, leg­al ex­perts and en­thu­si­asts from CMS spe­cial­ising in crypto and oth­er di­git­al as­sets have col­lab­or­ated to provide their per­spect­ives on vari­ous fa­cets of MiCA. This webpage serves as a re­pos­it­ory for art­icles en­cap­su­lat­ing the present state of af­fairs.For leg­al sup­port per­tain­ing to crypto and oth­er di­git­al as­sets, reach out to your reg­u­lar CMS li­ais­on or send an email to crypto@cmsleg­al.com.

24.05.2023

Law no. 2020-105 of 10 Feb­ru­ary 2020 on com­bat­ing wastage and on the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy (here­in­after "Anti-Wastage & Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Law"), which was one of the le­gis­lat­ive pri­or­it­ies for 2019/2020, should...

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity-linked fin­an­cing is still in its in­fancy, but it is already an in­teg­ral part of today's fin­an­cing land­scape and looks set to re­main in­to the fu­ture. Plenty of data and in­form­a­tion ex­ists, par­tic­u­larly on the KPIs of sus­tain­ab­il­ity-linked fin­an­cings, but it is scattered.In this guide we have com­piled, ana­lysed and com­men­ted on all as­pects of sus­tain­ab­il­ity-linked fin­an­cing to give you ac­cess to everything you need to know.

Spring/Sum­mer 2023