Five Law Firms facilitate Renesas Electronics' Acquisition of Altium | Asia

Renesas Electronics, a Japanese advanced semiconductor solutions supplier, is set to acquire US electronics design systems company Altium for AUD9.1 billion (USD5.9 billion).

Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed Renesas – advised by DLA Piper, Covington & Burling and Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu – will launch an all-cash buyout of Australian Securities Exchange-listed Altium via a scheme of arrangement under Australian law, according to a February 14 press release by the Japanese company.

Represented by King & Wood Mallesons and Reed Smith, Altium’s board of directors has unanimously accepted the buyout, which is expected to close in the second half of this year pending approval from Altium shareholders, an Australian court and regulators.

DLA Piper’s advice to Renesas is led by Sydney-based corporate partners David Ryan and James Stewart, while Covington & Burling’s team consists of lead partners Mark Plotkin, Sam Karson and Brian Kim. Nagashima Ohno’s partner Miyuki Ishiguro is leading the Tokyo-based law firm’s team advising Renesas.

On the seller’s side, King & Wood Mallesons’ partners David Friedlander and Daniel Natale are leading their firm’s team advising Altium. Michael Lowell, chair of Reed Smith’s global regulatory enforcement group, is acting as the lead partner advising Altium on the regulatory aspects of the transaction.

In 2018, Nagashima Ohno and Covington, together with Morrison & Foerster, advised Renesas on its USD6.7 billion acquisition of Integrated Device Technology, a Nasdaq-listed US analogue mixed-signal products supplier.

Reed Smith, on the other end, has acted for Altium in the past such as advising the Australia-listed company on selling its global “TASKING” business to Scandinavian private equity investor FSN in 2020.