Member Article

We are pleased to announce that Karanovic & Nikolic team, together with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has supported UniCredit S.p.A. (Italy) in a recently closed take-over of the CEE business of UniCredit Bank Austria AG including shareholdings in 13 banks in Southern Europe and CEE as well as a relevant loan portfolio. Freshfields and Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner were the lead advisors on the transaction, while Karanovic & Nikolic acted as the local advisor in Serbia and (through its corresponding law offices) in Croatia and Slovenia.

The transaction involved two steps: a reorganisation under which the CEE business was split off into an Austrian special-purpose vehicle, immediately followed by the cross-border merger of that SPV into UniCredit S.p.A. Following the approval of the European Central Bank, Banca d'Italia and the Austrian Financial Market Authority, the transfer was perfected as of October 1, 2016.

The Karanovic & Nikolic team was led by Partner Maja Jovancevic Šetka, and consisted of Senior Associates Ivona Vuckovic and Katarina Guduric, as well as attorneys working in cooperation with Karanovic & Nikolic in Slovenia – Jaka Simoncic and Marko Kranjc, and Franka Baica – independent attorney at law – in Croatia.