Allen & Overy advises Infinigate Group on strategic merger with Cybersecurity Specialist StarLink
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10 October 2022
Allen & Overy LLP has advised Infinigate Group AG (Infinigate), a pan-European value-added distributor (VAD) of cybersecurity solutions and a portfolio company of private equity firm Bridgepoint, on its merger with StarLink. This is the latest important step in Infinigate Group’s expansion strategy, which will extend its reach to more than 50 countries, with offices in more than 30 countries.
StarLink, founded in 2005 and based in Dubai, is a market-leading VAD in cybersecurity, secure cloud and secure networking in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). It employs more than 300 people across 11 countries, managing a portfolio of 60 vendors and 1,500 resellers.
Infinigate, headquartered in Rotkreuz, Switzerland, offers state-of-the-art security solutions from more than 60 vendors through its European network of more than 10,000 partners, which includes resellers, integrators and consulting companies. Founded in 1996, Infinigate employs approximately 500 staff with a pan-European business in markets including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
The German Allen & Overy team comprised partners Dr. Roman Kasten and Dr. Nils Koffka, senior associates Dr. Marcus Mackensen and Dr. Ioannis Thanos and associates Maximilian Steinhoff and Georg Dalitz.
The broader global M&A team comprised partner David Foster, senior associates Emma Ghaffari and Dominique Coumans, associate Ben Morris and senior legal specialist Peter McParland; the Antitrust team comprised partner Hugh Hollman, counsel Charles Pommiès and associates Florian Bourdon and Nicholas Putz; the Tax team comprised partner Lydia Challen and senior associate Gordon Hopkinson; and the Finance team comprised partner Robin Harvey, senior associate Nihaal Khanna and associate Sykes Mitchell.
The transaction follows on from a series of acquisitions including Infinigate’s acquisition of the Nuvias Group (subject to antitrust approval), a cybersecurity software distributor headquartered in the UK which announced in July 2022, and Infinigate’s acquisition of Vuzion, Europe’s leading independent cloud services provider, to create the first VAD, announced in September 2022. Allen & Overy advised on both of these transactions, as well as advising Bridgepoint on their acquisition of Infinigate in July 2021.