White & Case has advised Russian food retailer X5 Retail Group on the acquisition of one of the largest retail supermarket chains in Russia, currently operating under the O'KEY brand.
The transaction involved the acquisition of 32 O'KEY supermarkets, including 18 in St Petersburg, four in Moscow, two in Volgograd, one each in the Moscow and Leningrad regions and in Astrakhan, Voronezh, Lipetsk, Togliatti, Krasnodar, and Novocherkassk. X5 will also acquire the real estate for 14 stores. All these supermarkets are due to be integrated into X5 Retail Group's Perekrestok chain, which had 600 stores as at October 2017.
The White & Case team in Moscow was led by local Partner Nikolay Feoktistov and included Counsel Adam Smith and Associates Daria Plotnikova, Evgeny Chernyavsky, and Timofey Neklyudov.
Editor's Note: After this article was published CEE Legal Matters learned that Herbert Smith Freehills advised O’KEY on the transaction. Their core Moscow team included Partner Evgeny Zelensky, Counsel Stanislav Grigoryev, Associate Elena Manasyan, with assistance from Counsel Justin Vaughan, and Associates Sergey Kolobov, Graeme McIntyre, and Annelise Barradale.
