Latham & Watkins LLP advised Novo Holdings A/S (Copenhagen) (“Novo”) on an increase of its anchor shareholding in TecDAX and MDAX listed Evotec AG (“Evotec”), which Novo acquired in February 2017. Evotec is one of the world’s leading providers in the field of drug discovery and development. As part of a EUR 250m cash capital increase with exclusion of subscription rights from authorized capital, Novo invested EUR 50m and as a result maintained its stake in Evotec of approximately 11%. Novo thereby underpins its already existing and close strategic partnership with Evotec. The remaining EUR 200 million were invested by a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, in return for the acquisition of a stake of approximately 5.6% in Evotec.

Novo Holdings A/S is a fully-owned subsidiary of Novo Nordisk Foundation and, as the holding company of the Novo group, is responsible for managing the foundation’s assets. Latham & Watkins has repeatedly advised Novo in the past, including on the acquisition of its anchor shareholding in February 2017.

The Latham team was led by Hamburg corporate partner Henning Schneider, with Hamburg corporate partner Dirk Kocher, Hamburg antitrust counsel Jana Dammann de Chapto, Frankfurt capital markets associate David Rath, and Dusseldorf corporate associate Steffen Augschill. 

Novo Holdings A/S in-house team was led by associate general counsel Søren Justesen.