Schoenherr is reporting that the United Group's EUR 1.2 billion acquisition of Vivacom (Bulgarian Telecommunications Company EAD), the largest telecom operator in Bulgaria — the deal that was signed in November 2019 and won CEE Legal Matters' 2019 Deal of the Year for Bulgaria — has closed. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison acted as lead English counsel to the United Group, while CMS and Kambourov & Partners were, respectively, English and Bulgarian counsel to the sellers.
"Signed in November 2019," Schoenherr reports, "this was the largest deal in Bulgaria in 2019 both in terms of value and size of the assets. The deal received competition approval from the European Commission on April 7, 2020. Schoenherr's work included legal due diligence review of Vivacom and advising on the Bulgarian aspects of the deal structuring, the negotiations, and the offering memorandum related to the financing."
More information about the deal can be found in an interview about it that appeared in the May 2020 issue of the CEE Legal Matters magazine, and here.
Editor's Note: After this article was published CMS and Kambourov & Partners confirmed their involvement in the deal. CMS's team was led by London-based Partner Eva Talmacsi and included Bucharest-based Consultant David Cranfield and Associate Bogdan Buta, Budapest-based Of Counsel Eszter Torok and Senior Associate Szilvia Kabacs, and London-based Partners Caroline Hobson, Jonathan Warne, Tim Sales, and Anna Burchner, Associates John Kontogeorges and Tom Sandeman, and Trainee Liviu Giuran.
