The preparation of U.S. Steel’s sale and a record investment in a startup

The sale of a company producing famous Slovak wafers, the largest Slovak bank’s entry into an investment platform, and the return of a railway repair company into the hands of its original owners.

These all appeared among the references provided by the largest law firms in Slovakia that consulted their clients on mergers and acquisitions (M&A). They provided summaries of the biggest and most interesting deals they have been involved in during the past year to The Slovak Spectator and the Slovak daily Sme.

Slovak web-hosting company bought by a tech giant

Slovak company Webglobe has become a leader on the central European web-hosting market following its establishment in 1999, thanks to acquisitions and the integration of several central European web-hosting players. Currently, it manages almost 300,000 registered domains.

Its founder, Igor Strečko, and the investment fund from the portfolio of the majority owner Sandberg Capital decided to sell their shares in the company in 2024. The new owner became the group.one company, a leading European provider of online presence, cloud hosting and digital marketing services with over two million customers. It has been owned by the global private equity firm Cinven and one of the largest pension plans in the world, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, since 2022.

The group.one company, residing in Sweden, was helped by the TaylorWessing law firm, which tops the M&A category in the latest edition of the Largest Law Firm ranking.

Radovan Pala from TaylorWessing e/n/w/c, the largest law firm in Slovakia in category category Mergers & Acquisitions. (source: Jozef Jakubčo)

“TaylorWessing Slovakia advised on legal due diligence, the acquisition process as well as the regulatory clearance of the transaction when permitting the foreign investment,” said partner Juraj Frindrich.

The law firm also counselled Slovenská Sporiteľňa, the largest bank in Slovakia, which provided an investment to the Crowdberry group. The bank invested millions of euros into a minority share in the platform which introduced a new form of financing companies, so-called crowdinvesting, in Slovakia 10 years ago.

Crowdberry is an investment platform that allows private investors to invest directly in specific companies and real estate projects. The acquisition will enable the bank to effectively support the market for new regulated crowdfunding opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures, Frindrich said.

A massive investment in a startup

Slovak startup CloudTalk, founded in 2018, focuses on cloud services that enable automation in call centres, and improve the quality of phone calls.

It received €28 million at the beginning of 2024, which it plans to invest in quicker growth and product innovation.

Havel & Partners was involved in the investment, providing legal and transactional advice to the investor, Hungarian capital and private equity company Lead Ventures. It is one of the biggest venture capital investments in Slovakia’s history. The legal and transactional advice concerned due diligence, including foreign jurisdictions, the preparation and negotiation of transaction documentation, and the closing of the entire transaction.