Clifford Chance, Latham & Watkins and Allen & Overy have all landed mandates on Thai Union Frozen’s (TUF) US$903m acquisition of MWBrands, the French parent company of canned tuna producer John West.

TUF will pay a multiple of 8.2 times MW’s 2010 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation – a relatively high price that reflects the rising interest from Asian investors in European assets.
 
“We’ve seen increasing interest from Asian investors in acquiring assets in Europe,” said Greg Brown, one of Allen & Overy’s lead partners on the deal. “This is a trend we expect to continue as confidence slowly builds in the market as Asian companies find themselves having avoided the worst of the fallout from the global financial crisis,” he said. Brown worked alongside fellow partners Sanjeev Dhuna and Adrian Mellor in advising the underwriters to the deal—Credit Agricole, Mizuho, Standard Chartered and Sumitomo.

A London-based Clifford Chance team led by partner Kathy Honeywood was retained by TUF while Latham & Watkins was tapped by MW Brands.

MWBrands was previously owned by Triatlantic Capital partners, the buy-out arm of the now defunct Lehman Brothers. It has one of the largest portfolios of tuna products in the world including Petit Navire and Mareblu. TUF will fund the acquisition through US$451m in loans from international banks and a further US$469m from Thai banks. It will also issue US$79.6m in convertible bonds.ALB

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• Yulchon advises on Korea's largest outbound M&A deal of the year (28 Jul 2010)
• Inter-Asian M&A deals on the rise (22 Jul 2010)
• Private equity ruling may open M&A floodgates (24 May 2010)