Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010 - (Page 16)

Page 16 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS December 20, 2010 International M&A helps law firms reach record year BY CHAD HALCOM CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS LAW FIRMS AND TOP DEALS Dykema Gossett Represented Asterand plc (LSE: ATC) in the acquisition of San Francisco-based BioSeek LLC in a deal ultimately valued at $9 million. The company originally made a $1 million down payment earlier this year, with a balance to be paid based on the 2010 revenue. A final price was announced earlier this month. Wilson Sonsini represented BioSeek in the deal. Represented General Motors Co. (“new GM”) in the purchase of General Motors Strasbourg SAS from Motors Liquidation Co. (“old GM”) out of bankruptcy liquidation in a transaction valued at one euro. GM Strasbourg designs and manufactures automatic transmissions for BMW and GM. New York-based Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP advised Motors Liquidation in the deal. from General Motors Co. in a deal valued at more than $450 million. Represented Mexican auto supplier Metalsa SA de CV, which acquired a structural products business of Maumee, Ohio-based Dana Holding Corp. for up to $150 million cash plus assumption of some liabilities. Represented Webasto AG agreeing to buy Karmann USA Inc. in Plymouth and the Karmann-Ghia de Mexico manufacturing plant in Puebla, Mexico, in a deal valued at more than $60 million. to private-equity firm Odyssey Investment Partners LLC, which closed early in the year for $500 million. Represented a subsidiary of Indiabased IFGL Refractories Ltd. in the September acquisitions of Cincinnati-based EI Ceramics LLC and CUSC International Ltd. in deals with an estimated combined value of $15 million. manufacturing presence before the deal. AZ reported 2009 revenue of around $130 million. Troy-based Duffy and Robertson PC advised Sodecia. Metro Detroit law firms report they are about to close on a record year, with at least $5 billion in international mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy asset sales and other international transactions. The sale of General Motors Co. steering and driveline parts subsidiary Nexteer Automotive Corp. to Pacific Century Motors — which closed recently as the Chinese joint venture company took over Nexteer operations — put Detroitbased Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP close to $2 billion in international transactions completed in 2010 and puts Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC close to $1 billion in deals this year. Honigman represented GM as the seller, and Miller Canfield was buyer’s counsel for Pacific Century in the Nexteer deal, which has been valued at around $450 million. Donald Kunz, chairman of the corporate and securities department at Honigman, said Nexteer capped a Kunz year of 15 to 20 international transactions with a total value of nearly $2 billion. He could not recall a previous Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn Represented GM in the Nexteer sale to Pacific Century that closed last month. Chicago-based Jones Day also advised GM on some specialized matters in the transaction. Foley & Lardner Buyer’s counsel for Johnson Controls Inc. and Mexican subsidiary Johnson Controls Automotriz Mexico, S de RL de CV in an April deal to acquire two plastic interiors component plants in Saltillo, Mexico, and Highland Park that supply Chrysler Group LLC, out of the bankruptcy of seller Visteon Corp., for $17 million. Was seller’s counsel for New York investment firm PineBridge Investments, owner of Center Linebased AZ Automotive Corp., now Sodecia North America, after PineBridge sold a majority stake in the stamping products supplier in March to Portugal-based Sodecia Group. Terms were undisclosed. Sodecia had revenue of about $246 million in 2008 but no local my,” said Clark Hill’s India practice group leader Mahesh Nayak. “I don’t think it’s just a function of the recession. We see economies and companies in Asia getting Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss Represented South Korean auto supplier KCW Corp. in acquiring an assembly line of the former Microheat Inc. in Farmington Hills and a licensing agreement with successor company AlphaTherm USA. Microheat filed for bankruptcy and closed after General Motors Corp. in 2008 recalled thousands of vehicles with Microheat’s heated windshield wiper fluid dispenser, which the company insisted was not defective. AlphaTherm, formed from a team of Microheat employees, bought some of its assets out of bankruptcy and reached a deal early in the year with KCW, which reported more than $67 million revenue in 2007. ready for a firm hold on operations in the United States, and I don’t see any slowing in the trend soon.” Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796, chalcom@crain.com Bodman Represented Northville-based Key Plastics LLC in acquiring assets of OLHO Group, including a Czech subsidiary and German manufacturing plant of the European auto supplier. Terms were undisclosed, but the purchased assets had forecast revenue of $75 million. German law firm LTS Rechtsanwälte Wirtschaftsprüfer Steuerberater advised OLHO in the deal. Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone Represented Beijing-based Tempo International Group Ltd., which formed joint venture Pacific Century Motors with state-owned Beijing ETown International Investment & Development Co. Pacific Century last month closed on the purchase of Saginaw-based Nexteer Automotive year at the firm where international deal values totaled much above $1 billion. “One of the things we found of some interest is we expected more Clark Hill Represented ThyssenKrupp AG in its sale of scaffolding rental subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Safway Inc. potential transactions that would be investments for investment’s sake internationally. Foreign investors were buying U.S. assets, and a toehold in a new market,” Kunz said. “But most of them were not interested in companies that did not do a significant domestic component of business for them in their own markets as well.” Rick Walawender, head of the corporate, international and automotive practices at Miller Canfield, said Nexteer put his law firm at around 10 deals closed for just less than $1 billion during the year, including more than $700 million in deals representing buyers. Other Miller Canfield deals in 2010 included Mexican supplier Metalsa SA de CV buying a structural products unit of Dana Holding Corp. for up to $150 million cash and assumption of some liabilities, and German sunroof system supplier Webasto AG agreeing to buy Karmann USA Inc. in Plymouth and the Karmann-Ghia de México manufacturing plant in Puebla, Mexico, in a deal valued at more than $60 million. Walawender agreed that foreign buyers were mainly interested in strategic buys of U.S. assets that had a footprint or customer base overseas, more than financial buys of profitable U.S. companies for their own sake. He and Kunz also said automotive buys made up the lion’s share of total deal values. Dykema Gossett PLLC in Detroit reports handling nine international transactions with an aggregate value of $600 million this year, and Clark Hill PLC reports it helped close at least four transactions worth more than $1.5 billion during 2010, including ThyssenKrupp AG’s sale of scaffolding rental subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Safway Inc. to private equity Odyssey Investment Partners LLC, which closed early in the year for $500 million. “I don’t think there’s any question there has been more than a blip here in the shift in the global econo- http://www.catherinelarive.com http://www.catherinelarive.com http://www.universalwatch.net http://www.universalwatch.net

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010

Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010
Department Index
Keith Crain
Mary Kramer
Opinion
Calendar
People
Business Diary
Classified Ads
Briefly
Rumblings
Week on the Web

Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010