Cuatrecasas advises Cegid on strategic PHC acquisition

Cuatrecasas in Portugal provided legal advice to the Cegid Group, an European player in cloud-based business management solutions for finance, human resources, accounting, retail, and entrepreneurship, on its acquisition of the technology company PHC Business Software, which has played a crucial role in the digital transformation of the Portuguese market.

With a client base of 37,000 companies and 170,000 users across Portugal, Spain, Angola, and Mozambique, the acquisition of the Portuguese PHC, which includes the integration of 262 employees, accelerates the French Cegid Group’s growth in the market for management software solutions for SMEs in the Iberian Peninsula and Lusophone Africa.

The acquisition of PHC follows the recent acquisition of EBP in France, Microdata in Spain, and the exclusivity agreement for the purchase of sevdesk in Germany, in line with Cegid’s growth strategy in this specific segment, according to a statement from the two companies involved in the transaction.

The advisors

The multidisciplinary team at Cuatrecasas involved in the legal advisory was coordinated by Mariana Norton dos Reis (pictured), lawyer and co-coordinator of the corporate and M&A practice area, and included Filipa Teixeira Diniz and Inês Câmara Pestana. Mariano Ucar Innerarity and Samantha Cyrne from the same practice area also participated, along with Pedro Marques Bom and António Souto Moura from competition and EU law; Sandra Silveira and Liliana Almeida de Moura from labor law; and Lucas Battistello Espindola from intellectual property, technology, and digital media. Several other lawyers from various practice areas, including banking & finance, capital markets, criminal compliance, and litigation & arbitration, also contributed to the team.

Mariana Norton dos Reis highlights: “This transaction involved complex legal aspects across the four jurisdictions where PHC has a presence (Portugal, Spain, Mozambique, and Angola), so it was essential to have a team with extensive experience in international transactions, with specialists in corporate, labor, intellectual property, competition law, among other areas, to address the legal issues raised and find solutions that allowed us to close the deal within a very tight timeline.”

Glória Paiva

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