A cross-border team from leading global law firm Baker McKenzie advised Swiss building component supplier Arbonia on the sale of its windows business to the Danish DOVISTA Group. The sale will allow Arbonia to strategically develop the remaining divisions of Arbonia and to substantially strengthen them both organically and through acquisitions. In addition, the Board of Directors is considering capital measures.
The five companies relating to the windows business that Arbonia sold are Dobroplast, EgoKiefer, Slovaktual, Webcom and Wertbau. With this acquisition, the DOVISTA Group will gain access to the Central European markets of Switzerland, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia, where the Windows Division holds strong market positions.
In 2015, Arbonia initiated a comprehensive restructuring and relocation process in the Windows Division. It invested around CHF 100 million net in new production capacities, including the purchase of the German Wertbau in 2015, and in the modernization and automation of its machinery. As a result, the four autonomously operating companies became an integrated group with three highly automated production competence centers for wood, wood/aluminium, vinyl, and vinyl/aluminium windows with a high degree of vertical integration, which has strong positions in the domestic markets of Switzerland, Slovakia and Poland.
Lawyers from Baker McKenzie’s Zurich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Prague and Warsaw offices advised Arbonia on the sale. The team was led by Partner Alexander Fischer, who was supported in Zurich by Philippine Dalla Corte as well as Matthias Courvoisier, Boris Wenger, Peter Reinert, Petra Hanselmann, Samuel Marbacher, Alexander Blaeser, Markus Wolf, Roger Thomi, Basil Kirby, Susanne Liebel-Kotz, Fabian Greutert, and Laurence Witschi. The team also comprised of Nikolaus Reinhuber, Jens Rikus, Nicole Bassmann and Katja Haeferer in Frankfurt, Andreas Schulz in Berlin, Viktoria Ritter in Munich, Tomas Skoumal, Vlastimil Kreysa, Marek Disman, Michal Simcina and Samuel Bodik in Prague, and Tomasz Krzyzowski, Piotr Wysocki, Piotr Maksymiuk, Katarzyna Lisiewska, Mikolaj Piaskowski, Piotr Ciepiela, Michal Pakosz, Kamil Matyskiewicz, Michal Lisawa, Jakub Zebrowski, Piotr Szczecinski and Piotr Pawlowski in Warsaw.
