Dr. Christoph Jerger

Kirkland & Ellis has advised Oakley Capital Fund III on the extension of Oakley’s investment in IU Group through the sale to a continuation vehicle alongside Oakley Capital Fund V. The continuation fund was oversubscribed and is backed by investors including TPG GP Solutions, HarbourVest Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Glendower Capital and Pantheon. With over 100,000 students enrolled, IU Group is Germany’s largest private university group. It provides a well-diversified mix of online degree courses, part-time studies and on-campus learning. IU is a pioneer in delivering high-quality education, leveraging technology and innovation to meet the changing needs of students. Read Oakley Capital’s press release The Kirkland team advising Oakley was led by transactional partners Ben Leyendecker and Christoph Jerger and included investment funds partners Ted Cardos and James King, transactional partner Philip Goj, tax partner Michael Ehret and debt finance partner Alexander Längsfeld, as well as transactional associates Greta-Josefin Harnisch, Tamara Zehentbauer, Lukas Fellhölter, Juliane Hubert, Julia Jung, debt finance associate Barbara Dunkel and investment funds associate Toby Karenowski.

May 25

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis has advised Cinven on the acquisition of the shares in SYNLAB held by funds advised by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited (“Elliott”) and the simultaneous reinvestment of Elliott into SYNLAB via a holding entity controlled by Cinven. Through this transaction, Elliott will become an indirect minority shareholder in SYNLAB alongside existing shareholders Cinven, Qatar Holding LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, and Labcorp (following the closing of Labcorp’s indirect minority investment in SYNLAB expected for early 2025). Following this transaction, Cinven will continue to be the controlling majority shareholder in SYNLAB. The transaction with Elliott is subject to regulatory approvals and is also expected to close in early 2025. SYNLAB is one of the leading European clinical laboratory and medical diagnostic services companies and has more than 27,000 employees in over 20 countries across four continents. The company achieved revenues of €2.64 billion in 2023. Kirkland already advised Cinven on the public acquisition offer and reinvestment of co-investors in 2023 as well as the subsequent delisting of SYNLAB AG and the sale of an indirect minority stake to Labcorp in 2024. Read Cinven’s press release The Kirkland team included transactional lawyers Dr. Christoph Jerger, Dr. Ben Leyendecker, Dr. Sebastian Häfele and Dr. Marcus Commandeur.

Oct 31

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis has advised Cinven on the sale of an indirect minority stake in SYNLAB to strategic investor Labcorp. The completion of the sale is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to occur in Q1 2025. SYNLAB is one of the leading European clinical laboratory and medical diagnostic services companies and has more than 27,000 employees in over 30 countries across four continents. The company achieved revenues of €2.64 billion in 2023. Kirkland already advised Cinven on the public acquisition offer and re-investment of co-investors in 2023 and the subsequent delisting of SYNLAB AG in 2024. Labcorp is a global leader of innovative and comprehensive laboratory services headquartered in the United States. The company has more than 60,000 employees worldwide. Read Cinven’s press release The Kirkland team advising Cinven was led by transactional partners Dr. Ben Leyendecker and Dr. Christoph Jerger and associate Dr. Marcus Commandeur.

Sep 19

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis has advised Oakley Capital Fund IV and other principal sellers on the sale of Contabo to KKR. Contabo is a fast-growing cloud infrastructure and hosting provider based in Munich, Germany, offering small-sized enterprises, developers, prosumers, and gamers simple, easy-to-use cloud services. With a global network of 24 data centers across four continents, Contabo is serving a diversified mix of more than 250,000 customers in different industries. Oakley Capital Fund V will acquire a minority stake in Contabo alongside future majority investor KKR. Read the press release The Kirkland team advising Oakley Capital Fund IV and other principal sellers on the sale of Contabo was led by private equity partners Benjamin Leyendecker, David Huthmacher and Christoph Jerger and included corporate partner Anna Schwander and antitrust & competition partner Thomas Wilson as well as corporate associates Thomas Diekmann, Marcus Commandeur, Lukas Fellhölter, Juliane Hubert and Tamara Zehentbauer. The Kirkland team advising Oakley Capital Fund V on its acquisition of a minority stake in Contabo was led by corporate partners Jacob Traff and David Higgins and included corporate associate Karsten Silbernagel.

Jun 8

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis advised Appfire, an enterprise collaboration software company that enables teams to plan and deliver their best work, on its acquisition of 7pace, creators of the top-selling app for Azure DevOps, 7pace Timetracker, which recently launched on GitHub. This acquisition marks a strategic expansion for Appfire into the Microsoft ecosystem, with continued staffing, product expansion and go-to-market investments planned for both Azure DevOps and GitHub products. In addition, Appfire and 7pace will bring this leading solution to the Atlassian ecosystem, enhancing and expanding time management offerings for customers. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Read the Appfire press release The Kirkland team was led by corporate partners Christoph Jerger and Attila Oldag and associates Marcus Commandeur and Lukas Fellholter, with assistance from corporate partner Christian Atwood. The team also included support from tax partner Michael Ehret and associate David Linnemann.

Sep 14

1 min