Norwegian Infront acquires VWD group from Carlyle
Global investment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) announced that it has agreed to sell vwd Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste GmbH (vwd), a European provider of software solutions for investment professionals, to Infront ASA (Infront).
Infront is a European market leader for real-time market data, trading, news and analytics applications based in Oslo, Norway. The transaction is subject to approval from the relevant antitrust and financial regulatory authorities.
Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, vwd is a provider of software for the investment industry. With its intuitive solutions on a modular technology platform, vwd empowers wealth management and investment professionals to make smarter, more efficient and regulatory-compliant investment decisions.
In this new strategic partnership, vwd’s comprehensive offering covering data & feed, portfolio & advisory, regulatory & calculation and publication & distribution solutions will be complemented by Infront’s best-in-class market data and trading solutions. vwd will therefore be able to continue pursuing its unified platform product strategy with Infront adding a highly sophisticated front-office trading product suite. Both vwd and Infront customers will benefit from the two companies combining their sector-defining capabilities across regulation, private wealth management and market data.
Advokatfirmaet Selmer AS was lead counsel for Infront ASA, including lead on negotiations, bond and equity financing, securities regulations, as well as leading an international legal due diligence team consisting of Bird&Bird (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium), Schellenberg Wittmer (Switzerland) and Gattai (Italy)
The transaction was co-led by Thomas Michelet, Remi Dramstad and Jon Fredrik Johansen. Corporate, finance regulatory, securities and stock exchange, bond finance were the main involved legal areas/ areas of specialisation.
