Clifford Chance
Clifford Chance advises consortium company of AUDI AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG on the sale of 25% of the shares in HERE
11 January 2017
- Nicole Englisch, , , , ,
- Munich
Clifford Chance advises consortium company of AUDI AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG on the sale of 25% of the shares in HERE
Clifford Chance advised the joint venture formed by AUDI AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG on the sale of a 15%-stake in mapping service HERE to US chip manufacturer Intel and of a 10%-stake to a syndicate formed by two investors from China and one investor from Singapore.
The Asian investors taking stakes in HERE are Chinese internet group Tencent, Chinese mapping service provider NavInfo and Singapore's state fund GIC. The German car manufacturers are thus reducing their indirect participation by 25%. The advice rendered by Clifford Chance mainly focused on the shareholders' agreements with the new investors and on corporate governance aspects as well as antitrust law issues.
HERE produces high-precision digital maps which are an important requirement for new assisting systems up to fully automated driving. In August 2015, Audi, BMW and Daimler had acquired equal shares in HERE from Nokia Corporation. The acquisition was aimed at permanently securing the availability of HERE products and services as open, independent and value-adding platform for cloud-based maps and mobility services for the automotive and other industries.
The Clifford Chance team was led by partner Dr. Nicole Englisch and included associate Nico Basener (both Munich), counsel Floor van der Steenstraten and associate Ellen Römkens (both Amsterdam) - all Corporate – as well as partner Dr. Joachim Schütze and senior associate Dr. Florian Wiesner (both Antitrust, Düsseldorf).
