Marburg/ Darm­stadt — The British Spec­tris plc has acqui­red the VI-grade Group. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted for the end of August 2018. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. Gleiss Lutz advi­sed the British tech­no­logy company Spec­trics plc on this transaction.

VI-grade specia­li­zes in the produc­tion of auto­ma­tic controls and test systems, as well as the deve­lo­p­ment of turn­key solu­ti­ons for static and dyna­mic driving simu­la­tion. The company, with offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy, the UK, Japan, China and the USA, deli­vers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons to stream­line deve­lo­p­ment proces­ses, mainly in the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, motor­cy­cle, motor­sport and rail­road industries.

Spec­tris plc is a leading provi­der of products, tech­no­lo­gies and services that help compa­nies increase produc­ti­vity, improve product quality and opti­mize proces­ses until a product is laun­ched. In doing so, Spec­tris is active world­wide for custo­mers from various indus­tries and serves four busi­ness areas: Mate­ri­als Analy­sis, Test and Measu­re­ment, In-Line Instru­men­ta­tion and Indus­trial Controls. Head­quar­te­red in Egham, Surrey, UK, the company is listed on the London Stock Exch­ange (LSE) and employs around 9,800 people in more than 30 countries.

Gleiss Lutz coor­di­na­ted the tran­sac­tion as lead coun­sel in all juris­dic­tions invol­ved, in addi­tion to Germany also the UK (Shoos­miths LLP), Italy (Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Part­ners), Japan (Kita­hama Part­ners), Switz­er­land (Hombur­ger) and USA (Sidley Austin LLP).

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team led by Dr. Patrick Kaffiné, photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) advi­sed Spec­tris on the tran­sac­tion: Dr. Stefan Mayer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner, Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Ilter, Julia Müller, Dr. Konstan­tin von Dryan­der, (all Corporate/M&A, all Frank­furt), Dr. Matthias Werner, (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Munich), Dr. Ocka Stumm, Chris­tian Hein­richs (both Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Abend (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Birgit Colbus (Coun­sel), Dr. Saskia Kirch­geß­ner (both Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt).

The tran­sac­tion was advi­sed in-house by Dr. Alex­an­der Dähnert (M&A Coun­sel, London/Darmstadt) and Silke Leng­nick (Mana­ger Group Taxes, Darmstadt).

Gleiss Lutz regu­larly advi­ses Spec­tris on tran­sac­tions in Germany, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of DISCOM Elek­tro­ni­sche Systeme und Komponenten