Hano­ver — Conti­nen­tal AG (Conti­nen­tal) has acqui­red Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive GmbH (Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive), a leading specia­list and manu­fac­tu­rer of auto­mo­tive anten­nas. The acqui­si­tion also includes the entire work­force of just over 1,000 employees and the eight sites world­wide. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is sche­du­led for the first quar­ter of 2019. Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed Conti­nen­tal on this transaction.

Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive is a subsi­diary of Kath­rein SE with head­quar­ters in Rosen­heim. The company employs over 1,000 people at a total of eight sites in Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico, Portu­gal and the USA.

Conti­nen­tal is a listed German tech­no­logy company head­quar­te­red in Hano­ver. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 244,000 people at over 400 loca­ti­ons in 61 count­ries. After many years of successful coope­ra­tion, Conti­nen­tal is now taking over Kath­rein Auto­mo­tive GmbH in order to deve­lop its own solu­ti­ons for intel­li­gent mobi­lity in the future. Powerful and intel­li­gent anten­nas are the key tech­no­logy for holi­stic vehicle networking.

“Powerful and intel­li­gent anten­nas are the key tech­no­logy for holi­stic vehicle networ­king,” says Helmut Matschi, member of Continental’s Execu­tive Board and head of the Inte­rior divi­sion. Conti­nen­tal sees above-average market growth in the area of vehicle anten­nas. There, the supplier refers to an esti­mate by analysts Radi­ant Insights, accor­ding to which the market is expec­ted to grow by an average of 6.5 percent annu­ally until 2022.

Advi­sors to Cona­ti­nen­tal AG: Shear­man & Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team was under Lead by part­ner Dr. Thomas König (Frankfurt‑M&A) included part­ners Dr. Esther Jansen (Fran­k­­furt-Finance) and Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Fran­k­­fur­­t/­­Mu­­nich-Restruc­­tu­ring), coun­sel Dr. Anders Kraft (Fran­k­­furt-Tax) and Dr. Mathias Stöcker (Fran­k­­furt-Anti­­trust) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, Dr. Phil­ipp Jaspers, Evelin Moini, Denise Tayler (all Frankfurt‑M&A), Marion von Grön­heim (Fran­k­­furt-Finance) and Dr. Astrid Ruppelt (Fran­k­­furt-Tax). The inter­na­tio­nal team included asso­cia­tes Phoebe Yin (Beijing M&A), Omer K. Hashmi (New York M&A), Benja­min Peter­sen (Menlo Park Intellec­tual Property Tran­sac­tions) and Davide Cavazz­ana (Rome M&A).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.