THE QIOPTIQ GROUP ANNOUNCES BID FOR OPTICS MANUFACTURER LINOS AG
Milbank Acts as Legal Advisor to Linos Majority Shareholders in Major Industry Transaction
Munich, July 14th, 2006 – Optco Akquistions GmbH announced today that it will launch a bid to acquire Linos AG, a leading international provider of sophisticated optical solutions. The Munich office of the international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is representing the majority shareholders of Linos: CEO Prof. Dr. Gerd Liftin and his family.
Optco is an investment company subsidiary of the Qioptiq Group and was created for the express purpose of acquiring Linos. The Qioptiq Group is an optical component manufacturer that is owned by the European Private Equity investor Candover. The Qioptiq Group recently signed an agreement to acquire the shares of Prof. Dr. Gerd Liftin and his family who together hold 40.8 percent of all outstanding shares in Linos AG. The takeover bid, and the acquisition of Prof. Litfin’s shares in particular, are subject to the condition that Qioptiq holds at least 75 percent of the shares in Linos AG after the consummation of its takeover bid.
The Qioptiq Group is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of high-precision optical components and modules for military and commercial applications with a turnover of 142 million Euro in 2005 and 1.450 employees worldwide in Europe, Asia and North America.
The Milbank team representing Prof. Litfin included: Munich: Dr. Norbert Rieger (Partner – M&A; lead), Dr. Christoph Rothenfußer (Associate – Corporate Advisory/Take Overs) and Stefan Kroeker (Associate – M&A).
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a preeminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions in many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. Our transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance and transactions, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. Our clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The Firm is headquartered in New York, with offices in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Milbank opened its first European office in London in 1979. The Firm’s German offices were opened in Frankfurt in 2001 and in Munich in 2004. Milbank’s European presence has more than doubled in the last two years with growing practices in capital markets, corporate, finance, private equity, outsourcing and litigation. By combining the skill and experience of the lawyers in Milbank's German offices with that of the finance, corporate and tax lawyers based in the Firm’s other offices around the globe, Milbank Germany offers its clients fully integrated legal advice at the highest level in these core areas under German, English and US law.