Firms lead as European business sold to Japanese coffee maker

Herbert Smith and Linklaters have advised on the $617m (£382m) sale of European coffee business United Coffee to Japanese coffee business UCC Holdings.

Herbert Smith advised UCC led by London corporate partner Gillian Fairfield, who advised alongside City private equity partner James MacArthur and Tokyo corporate partner James Robinson.

Japanese firm Mori Hamada & Matsumoto also advised UCC.

Linklaters acted for the seller, buyout firm CapVest, with co-head of private equity Richard Youle at the lead.

The deal is expected to see the combined entity become one of the five largest independent coffee companies in the world.

Fairfield said: "UCC is a fairly new client of ours in Europe and the deal is a further indication of the increasing investment we are seeing from Asia into European markets, particularly in consumer areas such as the food and drinks industry. There has also been an increase in private equity activity in terms of the number of acquisitions and disposals we are seeing.

"Private equity houses have been holding off activity over the past couple of years when markets have been very depressed, but we are now seeing the first signs of a pick-up in activity, particularly in terms of sales to corporate buyers."

UCC is Japan's largest coffee producer with an annual turnover of around €2.5bn (£2bn).

The news comes after Herbert Smith and Linklaters closed another deal opposite each other last month: Vodafone's successful £1bn bid for Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW).