Milbank Advises General Atlantic on Strategic Partnership on Deutsche Börse’s Index Business

The international law firm Milbank LLP has advised the global growth equity investor General Atlantic on entering into a strategic partnership for Deutsche Börse Group's index business. General Atlantic will invest around $715 million into the new company, which will be used to finance the acquisition of Axioma, a global provider of cloud-based portfolio and risk management software solutions. Axioma has an enterprise value of $850 million and will be combined with Deutsche Börse’s index businesses (STOXX and DAX) valued at €2.6 billion. Both businesses will form a new company whose growth is intended to further accelerate by the collaboration with General Atlantic.

The combination of Deutsche Börse's index business with Axioma will create a fully integrated, leading buy-side intelligence player that will provide unique products and analytics to meet the growing demand for an end-to-end platform. Axioma and Deutsche Börse’s index business are highly complementary and together will offer a broad suite of index and analytics products with global coverage. As a result, the combined company is expected to materially grow revenue and EBITDA.

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. General Atlantic combines a collaborative global approach, sector- specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers.

The transaction is subject to approval by the relevant competition authorities and further customary conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter 2019.

A Milbank team led by Norbert Rieger and Sebastian Heim comprehensively advised General Atlantic on corporate, finance, tax and antitrust law aspects related to the transaction.

Advisor to General Atlantic: Milbank LLP

Norbert Rieger, Sebastian Heim (joint lead), Steffen Oppenländer (all Corporate/M&A, Munich/London), Suhrud Mehta (Finance, London), Roland Hlawaty (Corporate, New York), Rolf Füger (Tax, Munich), Russell J. Kestenbaum (Tax, New York), Leopold Riedl (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt), Pascal Härdtner, Johannes Wohlmuth, Sebastian Reiner-Pechtl, Fritz Schuchmann (all Corporate/M&A, Munich), Katharina Kolb, Moritz Lichtenegger (both Antitrust, Munich), Moritz Philipp (Tax, Munich), Andrew Bechtel, Tom Neilson, Michael Gatter (all Finance, London), Gabriel DiBernardi (Corporate, New York).