Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises COMPAREX AG on its sale to SoftwareONE

The international law firm Clifford Chance has advised global IT service provider COMPAREX AG on the sale of 100% of its shares to SoftwareONE, a global provider of software and cloud portfolio management services. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2019. The acquisition is still subject to competition and other regulatory approvals.

The transaction creates a major software licensing specialist with over 200 local offices in 88 countries and service units with more than 5,500 experts. The merged company will support customers in optimising and managing software worth more than €10 billion in the future.

COMPAREX is a global IT company with more than 30 years of experience as a provider of IT services and software license management. Its customers include medium-sized companies, industrial enterprises, international corporations and public administration. The COMPAREX Group employs 2,450 people worldwide at more than 80 locations in 36 countries in Europe, Asia and America. Sales in the 2017/18 fiscal year amounted to €2.533 billion.

SoftwareONE is a global specialist in software and cloud portfolio management, offering organisations a new way to budget and optimise global IT costs from on-premises to cloud. The company has been privately owned since 1985. With more than 3,000 technology experts in over 80 countries, SoftwareONE is one of the fastest growing technology solution providers in the world, with elite partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Adobe, IBM, VMware, Oracle, Citrix, Red Hat, Trend Micro and many others.

The Clifford Chance team consisted of Partner Christof-Ulrich Goldschmidt, Senior Associates Annette Röhder, Afroditi Tsobanelis-Görgen and Margret Bootz-Hagen, Associate Corinna Rogmann (Corporate/M&A), Partners Markus Stephanblome, Frank Scholderer, Senior Associate Susanne Werry, Senior Transaction Lawyer Carina Soesanto (all Corporate), Partner Christian Keilich, Counsel Steffen Amelung (both Real Estate, all Frankfurt), Partner Marc Besen, Counsel Dimitri Slobodenjuk, Senior Associate Anne Filzmoser (all Antitrust, Düsseldorf), Partner Stefan Simon, Senior Associate Christopher Fischer (both Employment) and Partner Sebastian Rakob (Litigation, all Frankfurt).