Law firm August & Debouzy and Swiss law firm MeyerLustenberger Lachenal advised the Calida group in connection with the acquisition of the 15.2% stake in Lafuma previously held by the historical family shareholders.

Lafuma, listed on NYSE Euronext - compartment C, is the leading French sports and outdoor clothing group, with sales amounting to EUR 225 million in 2012 via the Lafuma, Millet, Eider and Oxbow brands.

Catherine Le Manchec, 40, who joined August & Debouzy in 2002 as an associate and was appointed as counsel in 2006, represents and advises major French and international corporate groups in managing sensitive HR strategies, namely redundancies due to site closures by reason of restructurings or due to the loss of public contracts or the search for flexibility-related HR solutions. She has specific experience in connection with the HR and collective bargaining issues arising in restructurings.

Aurel-BGC, French investment company owned 100% by the American group, BGC Partners, a world leader in financial services, has purchased 100% of Ginalfi Finance, a Paris-based broker specialized in money and bonds markets.

This transaction falls within the diversification approach of Aurel-BGC of its various businesses.

AffiParis, a property company specializing in Paris commercial real-estate, was listed on NYSE Euronext Paris and 87.7% of its share capital and approximately 87.9% of its voting rights were held by Affine R.E.

This year, the International Tax Week took place between November 26 and 30, 2012, at Coventry University, UK, on the theme of "transfer pricing".
This international event brings together, for one week, students, professors and legal professionals in a host university of the European Union to exchange views on a specific theme addressed through lectures and case studies.

The founders of Mailjet raised €2.5 million from the Alven (via FCPR Alven Capital III) and Airtek Capital funds.

Mailjet is a French startup created in 2010 which counts around twenty people. It is specialized in the design of a cloud platform and Saas software related to the sending of emails for marketing and transactional purposes. The developed solution enables the management of remote sending to be optimized and emails, Web applications and e-commerce sites to be monitored by making management and reporting tools available to email senders.

After acquiring XL Germany in November 2011, X-Air Aviation is now a shareholder of XL France.
 
With the support of the American investment fund Beachside Capital, X-Air Aviation holding acquired Straumur/ALMC investment bank’s equity interest in XL France in order to establish a major player on the tourism air transportation market.

We are pleased to announce that August & Debouzy received the Best French Law Firm award at the 2012 European Awards ceremony held on October 25, 2012 in Monte Carlo.

Awarded by the prestigious English legal magazine The Lawyer, the European Awards reward the best European law firms who have distinguished themselves owing to their strategies and management methods.

August & Debouzy advised Orange and Thales within the framework of the creation of Cloudwatt, a cloud computing infrastructure company, alongside Caisse des dépôts et consignations, manager of a national Fund for Numérique (“Investments for the Future” Program), advised by Gille Loyrette Nouel.

August & Debouzy will attend the International Bar Association (IBA) annual conference to be held in Dublin from September 30 to October 5, 2012. If you wish to meet us there, please write to us at iba2012@augdeb.com