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Shearman & Sterling's tax practice is headed by Niels Dejean who is mentioned by his peers for his M&A work. The practice is particularly strong in transactional work, including reorganisations, M&A and private equity.Dejean advised a well-known German ... [more]

Shearman & Sterling's tax practice is headed by Niels Dejean who is mentioned by his peers for his M&A work. The practice is particularly strong in transactional work, including reorganisations, M&A and private equity.

Dejean advised a well-known German media group on its successful tender offer for a French online company. The practice also advised on a business combination between an engineering and infrastructure company and a construction and civil nuclear engineering company. The resulting business is valued at €815 million. The deal wentailed structuring for a number of different jurisdictions.

The group has been particularly busy in finance-related work this year and recently advised a company in the food & beverage industries on their €350 million senior secured bond offering.

Shearman & Sterling's tax practice consists of 15 fee earners. The group is led by Reinhard Stockum. Johannes Frey is singled out by his peers for his transactional work. "He is a very bright guy and certainly one to watch over the next few years," said ... [more]

Shearman & Sterling's tax practice consists of 15 fee earners. The group is led by Reinhard Stockum. Johannes Frey is singled out by his peers for his transactional work. "He is a very bright guy and certainly one to watch over the next few years," said one partner.

The work they do can be split almost in half between standalone work, involving day-to-day advice and litigation, and support work for the firm's M&A group and to a lesser extent the capital markets team.

Frey acted for Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland on the first guaranteed and secured high-yield bond issuance under the new German Bond Act worth more than $1billion. Bobo Bender represented Dow Chemicals on the divesture of its worldwide Styron business to Bain Capital in a deal worth $1.6billion. This raised issues of transfer pricing during the pre-acquisition cut-out.

Other deals include the structuring of a pharmaceutical joint venture for Omnicare Pharma Group and the acquisition by Qatar Holding of a 9% stake in a construction company.

US law firm Shearman & Sterling's London tax practice is led by Iain Scoon, supported by one counsel and one associate. The team's transatlantic links this year facilitated its advisory role in New England Sports Ventures' (NESV) well-publicised acquisition ... [more]

US law firm Shearman & Sterling's London tax practice is led by Iain Scoon, supported by one counsel and one associate. The team's transatlantic links this year facilitated its advisory role in New England Sports Ventures' (NESV) well-publicised acquisition of Liverpool Football Club. Inventive tax advice was necessary to allow NESV to make the acquisition in a tax efficient manner in both the UK and the US. In the UK, this entailed ensuring that the capitalisation and waiver of some of the Liverpool group's debts was not treated as income for tax purposes. This was just one of many considerations necessary to ensure the deal was structured in manner that would avoid antagonising supporters of the club as well as creating a commercially workable solution for the parties involved. Of counsel Simon Letherman was in charge of the tax driven acquisition of BP's Colombian business by Ecopetrol. Tax was a central issue in the $1.9 billion acquisition as Ecopetrol agreed to buy BP's tax structuring as part of the business. Associate James Leslie and Scoon advised Tata Steel on the disposal of its Teesside Cast Products business. Tax issues in the asset sale were complicated by the age of some of the assets. Assets bought in 1982 had to be re-based for the transaction, creating some unique tax issues around capital receipts and balancing charges and allowances. Transitional service agreements were used to ensure a tax efficient extraction of assets for both seller and buyer. The joint venture entered by the parties to secure joint use of the Teeside site also called the firm's structuring expertise to the fore.