Simpson Thacher is representing a consortium consisting of Changsha Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd., Hony Capital, Goldman Sachs Principal Investment Area and Mandarin Capital Partners with respect to their acquisition of CIFA S.p.A., the leading concrete equipment manufacturer in Italy. Zoomlion is a leading manufacturer and distributor of construction machinery and sanitation equipment in China, and its combination with CIFA will create the largest concrete machinery manufacturer in China and the second largest player globally. The purchase price for the transaction is €375.5 million, with approximately €270 million equity contribution from the consortium members, and the remaining portion funded through non-recourse offshore debt. The transaction also involves a refinancing of CIFA's existing debt in the amount of approximately €116 million. The transaction is pending PRC government approvals and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008.
The Simpson Thacher team working on the transaction includes: Douglas Markel, Leiming Chen, Shaolin Luo, Peng Tan, Terry Crawford, Yi Zhang, Maggie Zheng, Ning Liu and Vivien Mao (M&A and Corporate); Stephen Short, Euan Gorrie, Polly Mullan, Kiran Bhullar and Candy Ma (Finance); Peter Rosen (Tax); Michael Naughton, Olivier Antoine, William Kearney (Competition); Adeeb Fadil and Timothy Mulvihill (Environmental); and Lori Lesser and Jennifer Rackoff (Intellectual Property). Corporate paralegal Jianping Lu and Emma Liu also provided valuable assistance on this transaction.