Noerr successfully manages sale of Wirecard North America

With a team led by Florian Becker (Munich) and Sascha Leske (New York) Noerr has advised Wirecard AG’s insolvency administrator, lawyer Michael Jaffé from the law firm JAFFÉ Rechtsanwälte Insolvenzverwalter, on the successful sale of Wirecard North America Inc. to financial holding company Syncapay Inc. As part of the transaction, funds advised by Centerbridge are taking over a majority stake in Syncapay. Other shareholders of Syncapay are Bain Capital Ventures, Silversmith Capital Partners, MissionOG, and NYCA.

Wirecard North America is one of the market leaders in the US for the issuing of compensation, disbursement, consumer incentive and refund cards. Wirecard North America will be renamed North Lane and will be operated by Syncapay alongside daVinci Payments, a service provider acquired by it in 2017.

Closing of the transaction is still subject to regulatory approval.

Acting as lead counsel, Noerr also provided wide-ranging advice on the transaction, which was structured under German law, from its New York office which is headed by Sascha Leske. The transaction was preceded by an intensive and complex bidding process coordinated by the investment bank Moelis.

Advisors:

Insolvency administrator of Wirecard AG, lawyer Dr Michael Jaffé:

JAFFÉ Rechtsanwälte Insolvenzverwalter: Dr Michael Schuster, Dr Lothar Czaja

Noerr LLP:

Dr Florian Becker (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Dr Sascha Leske (Private Equity, New York, joint lead), Professor Christian Pleister (Private Equity, Berlin/Frankfurt), Dr Torsten Kraul (Digital Business, Berlin), Dr Christoph Rieken (IP, Munich), Dr Kathrin Westermann (Antitrust & Competition, Berlin), Robert Korndörfer (Corporate/M&A, Munich)

Associates: Dr Hannah Lee-Wunderlich (Private Equity, New York), Hannes Butz (Banking & Finance, Frankfurt), Johannes Pfeiffer (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Aleksandra Vujinovic (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt), Lisa Nordbakk, Francesc Lloveras Calvo, Jin-Sa John Jun (all Corporate/M&A, Berlin)

Advisors to Wirecard (on US law): Ropes & Gray LLP (Bob Rivollier, Matt Jacobson, Tristan Evans-Wilent)