Abreu advises Lyft on €175M Freenow acquisition
Lyft, a US ride-hailing service, has announced the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Intelligent Apps GmbH (Target), the company responsible for the operations of FreeNow, a taxi and TVDE booking platform based in Germany, as reported by Legal Community Germany (click to read). The acquisition value amounted to €175 million. This transaction was led by Baker & McKenzie, with support by Abreu Advogados in Portugal, that advised the buyer’s side on all legal aspects related to due diligence in areas such as corporate, M&A, financing agreements, intellectual property ownership, and others.
DLA Piper, on the other hand, has advised BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Group on the sale of their jointly operated mobility platform FreeNow, with its german legal team. FreeNow will continue its business operations and aims for further growth. Lyft was founded in 2012 as one of the first ridesharing communities in the US and is now present in both the United States and Canada. Lyft offers car ride services, bicycles, and scooters through a single app. With this operation, Lyft enters the European market, as FreeNow is already present in Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland and Spain.
The companies say in a statement that this is “Lyft’s most significant expansion outside North America, nearly doubling the market to more than 300 billion personal vehicle trips per year”.
The Portuguese team
The Abreu team was led by partners César Bessa Monteiro, jr and Ana Sofia Batista (both pictured), and professional partner Cláudia Santos Malaquias, with the support of partner Ricardo Henriques, professional partners Patrícia Perestrelo and Sónia Gemas Donário, associated partner José Maria Alves Pereira, senior associates Inês Cortez Elói and Marta Castro Henriques, and trainee lawyer Catarina Rodrigues Rocha.
