Niederer Kraft Frey advised in its capacity as lead counsel EQT Private Equity on the sale of a majority stake in VFS Global, the leading visa outsourcing services provider, to Blackstone. EQT will retain a minority position in VFS Global alongside Blackstone and the Kuoni and Hugentobler Foundation. VFS Global is the industry pioneer and the world’s largest provider of visa outsourcing services, such as administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to visa, passport and consular services for governments and diplomatic missions. EQT Private Equity acquired Kuoni Group in May 2016, which at the time consisted of three business segments: GTA, GTS (Kuoni Global Travel Services) and VFS Global. Following a strategic repositioning of the business, the GTA and GTS segments were divested in 2017, allowing EQT Private Equity to focus fully on the development of VFS Global as a standalone portfolio company.
The NKF team was led by M&A partner Till Spillmann, working with M&A/Finance partner Adrian Koller, senior associates Deirdre Ní Annracháin and Andrea Giger, associates Katalin Siklosi, Corinne Russi and Alessandro Stanchieri and junior associates Dominique Sunitsch, Max Hoffet (all M&A) as well partner Daniel Eisele and senior associate Anja Vogt (both Dispute Resolution) and partner Nicolas Birkhäuser (Antitrust/Competition).