Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised Deutsche Börse AG (“Deutsche Börse”) on the sale of a 50% stake in REGIS-TR S.A. by Clearstream Banking S.A. (“Clearstream Banking”) and a 50% stake in REGIS-TR UK Ltd. by Clearstream Holding AG (“Clearstream Holding”). The shares were sold to joint venture partner Sociedad de Gestión de los Sistemas de Registro, Compensación y Liquidación de Valores, S.A. Unipersonal (“Iberclear”), part of the SIX Group. The deal was signed on 3 September 2021 and is expected to close in the first half of 2022.
Established in 2010 in Luxembourg, REGIS-TR S.A. is one of the leading European trade repositories, offering reporting services that cover major European trade repository obligations including EMIR, SFTR and FinfraG services. REGIS-TR UK Ltd. was incorporated in 2019 to offer EMIR services in the UK following Brexit.
Deutsche Börse is an international stock market organisation and provider of innovative market infrastructure active in 38 locations worldwide. It offers its customers a wide range of services and technologies covering the entire value chain of financial markets including clearing, trading and keeping custody of securities, the provision of market data and the management of securities and liquidity as well as IT solutions and services. Clearstream Banking and Clearstream Holding are wholly owned affiliates of Deutsche Börse.
The cross-border WFW team that advised Deutsche Börse was led by Partner and Frankfurt Office Head Dr Torsten Rosenboom, working closely with Associate Dr Marius Rothermund (Corporate), assisted by Frankfurt Partner Dr Sebastian Wulff (Capital Markets), Hamburg Partner Dr Christine Bader (Regulatory), London Partner Christina Howard (Corporate) and Madrid Partner Gonzalo Aranzabal (Corporate). Senior Associate Matthias Murr (Corporate) and Counsel Torge Rademacher (IP/IT) assisted Torsten and the Frankfurt team. Internationally the teams was assisted by Jenny Hodges from the WFW London office and Javier Ortega from WFW Madrid. Frédéric Franckx, Ana Andreiana and Farah Jeraj from Loyens & Loeff advised on matters relating the laws of Luxembourg.
Torsten commented: “We are very pleased that Deutsche Börse once again instructed us to advise them on a cross-border disposal, having previously done so on the sale of Regulatory Services GmbH. That they chose WFW Germany to advise them on the sale of Luxembourg and UK-based companies to a Spanish buyer also underlines our experience and expertise in cross-border M&A transactions”.
