About Lennart Crain
Lennart Crain is a partner of the firm and co-heads the Corporate/M&A group. Lennart specialises in public and private M&A transactions, public company representation and complex negotiations. He regularly advises on public offers, buyouts, controlled auction sales, growth capital investments and complex disentanglements. Lennart has ample experience with transactions for private equity clients and other financial sponsors. He also acts for strategic parties and is well-versed across a broad range of sectors, including technology, media and software. He regularly leads multi-jurisdictional transactions, with or without a Dutch connection, and often works with leading international law firms on their multi-jurisdictional deals. Lawyers and insurers consult Lennart in the field of W&I insurance.
Lennart's financial acumen, gained during his MBA at Columbia Business School, enables him to translate financial aspects into deal strategy, negotiations and transaction documentation. Clients appreciate the combination of his helicopter view and attention to detail.
His work is recognized by the international legal directories Chambers & Partners (Global and Europe Guides), The Legal 500 (EMEA) and IFLR1000 in the fields of M&A and Private Equity, where his financial expertise is credited. Sources describe him as "efficient and creative", "customer-centric, very proactive", "brings parties together", "a pragmatic and experienced M&A lawyer who keeps his eye on the prize, prioritising what needs to be prioritised", “very responsive, commercial and solution oriented”, “good negotiator”, and “has deep knowledge of both legal and financial matters”.
By way of pro bono work, Lennart served in Kosovo, after the declaration of independence from Serbia, as visiting attorney for the Legal Unit with the International Civilian Office and EU Special Representative.
Recent mandates:
- Advised Achmea on the acquisition of Blue Sky Group’s asset management, including the three KLM pension funds
- The Offeror on the recommended public offer and potential delisting of Hydratec Industries, listed on Euronext Amsterdam
- Acquisition by EQT-backed SUSE of the full stack observability platform StackState
- Digital geo-data provider GeoJunxion on the sale of its entire business in a take-private by a private equity consortium, and delisting from Euronext Amsterdam
- Nasdaq Stockholm listed Vitec Software Group on multiple software acquisitions
- Marlin Equity Partners on their public bid jointly with Altor for Meltwater (Dutch NV listed on Oslo Børs) at c. EUR 540m
- Competing offeror on the potential EUR 2bn+ interloper public bid for AMS-listed Intertrust, a corporate services provider
- Blackstone Growth on a European acquisition
- PAI on various Dutch transactions
- Founders in the sale of their EdTech business to a US-based unicorn
- Euronext Amsterdam listed Neways on the unsolicited public offer by VDL and the subsequent, recommended, public offer by Infestos
- A Euronext Amsterdam listed issuer on a potential public offer, and the eventual squeeze out and delisting
- PFM Intelligence, a scaleup in the PropTech space, in the merger of its UK operations with a UK competitor
- Auction sale of NDC Media, the last major Dutch independent multimedia publisher, to Belgian Mediahuis
- PE firm’s exit from a financial services intermediary
- The founding family and management in the buyout of Megadyne by Partners Group and roll-over into a combination with Ammeraal Beltech at a combined EV of €2bn
- PE firm’s acquisition of a 5-star hotel
- KL-listed IOI’s sale of a 70% stake in Loders Croklaan to NYSE-listed Bunge at an EV of $1.4bn
Selected experience before AKD:
- Auction sale of insurer Nationale Borg by PE firms Egeria and HAL (to NYSE-listed AmTrust) for €154m
- NXP Semiconductors’ merger with Freescale, both NASDAQ-listed, at $40bn combined EV
- Related remedy auction sale of NXP’s RF Power business to Chinese PE firm JAC Capital for $1.8bn
- Various other deals in the Tech space, including aquisitions from founders
- Ballast Nedam on the public takeover offer by a Turkish construction company
- Privatization-auction of insurer VIVAT to China's Anbang
- D.E MasterBlenders on the €7.5bn public takeover offer by JAB
- Several other potential (sometimes competing/hostile) public takeover bids
- ABN AMRO’s acquisition of Brazilian bank
- Auction sale of VION Ingredients to NYSE-listed Darling for €1.6bn
- Royal Philips’ sale of 70%-stake in its TV division to JV with Chinese (HK-listed) TPV
- Publisher Telegraaf Media Group’s sale of local Limburg newspapers for € 200 million and the roll-over of a stake in SBS Television to Pro7Sat.1/SBS (with KKR and Permira), and various other mandates for publisher TMG