Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP) announced today that it remained the best ranked law firm in Romania in the 2012 edition of the international legal guide IFLR 1000. The legal guide ranked the law firm first in all practice areas researched in Romania: capital markets, banking law, mergers and acquisitions and project financing. IFLR 1000 provides annual rankings of top local and international law firms that provide corporate finance consultancy services, the research process being based on interviews with clients, with the firm’s representatives and their competitors.
Over the past nine years, NNDKP was constantly ranked in the first tier in virtually all of the practice areas researched in Romania by the world’s most prestigious legal guides, such as Chambers and Partners (the global and European editions) and The European Legal 500. The Tax Advisory Services and Intellectual Property Counseling practice areas were also first ranked by these specialized publications, as well as by Managing Intellectual Property (annual supplement) or International Tax Review.
„These rankings, which started to include more law firms from one edition to another, provide an overview of a mature legal market with a tremendous dynamics over the past decade. Both our team and those of our colleagues continue to offer legal advice for some of the most sophisticated transactions in terms of complexity, despite the climate of uncertainty – a context generated the careful negotiations of the investors, who aim at protecting their assets and at optimizing their businesses”, stated Manuela Nestor, one of NNDKP’s Managing Partners and head of the Banking, Finance and Capital Markets department.
In the first six months of 2011 the firm registered an increase of approximately 8% in the total volume of business in the M&A practice area and of over 6% in the Banking, Finance and Capital Markets department, compared to the same period of last year.
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Among the most significant financing projects in which NNDKP was involved during the first six months of 2011, there can be mentioned:
• Providing legal assistance to a global industry leader and its Romanian branch for a financing project worth EUR 75 million, which was provided to it by a bank syndicate;
• Assisting a bank syndicate for the accession of a Romanian company (as guarantor), whose group operates in the medical field, to a complex credit facility (in excess of EUR 500 million);
• Advising an important Asian financial institution concerning two successive financing projects of over EUR 40 million, which were offered to an important Romanian industrial group.
• Assisting București Turism, the owner of Radisson Blu and Centre Ville hotels, concerning the largest refinancing project of the year, of over EUR 71 million.
In the M&A practice area, a selection of the most important projects for the first six months of 2011 includes:
• Providing legal advice to Lafarge Group concerning the sale of its drywall producing division, which was conducted in several jurisdictions, including the three operating quarries in Romania. The legal assistance consisted of realizing the due diligence analysis concerning the activities of the group’s companies and providing counsel for all the other relevant aspects of the project. The value of the transaction is estimated to approximately EUR 1 billion.
• Advising a foreign investor in the mining industry concerning the potential acquisition of one of the largest Romanian nonferrous mining companies’ assets and exploiting licenses. NNDKP provided assistance to the same client with respect to the possible takeover of another mining company which was in insolvency. The projects had, aside from the M&A aspect, a strong insolvency component and involved regulatory aspects concerning the exploitation of natural resources.
• Assisting Motorola Inc. in an international transaction concerning the transfer of a part of the mobile phone network to Nokia Siemens Networks B.V. The legal assistance consisted in the analysis of the impact of the transaction on local level, structuring and reviewing the transaction documents for the local branch.
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For more information, please refer to:
Irina Melecciu | Director of Marketing and Communications
Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen | Attorneys & Counselors
Tel: (40-21) 20 11 200 | Fax: (40-21) 20 11 210
irina.melecciu@nndkp.ro | www.nndkp.ro