Czech Republic: Schoenherr advises Raiffeisen Bank International AG and Raiffeisenbank a.s. on acquisition of AKCENTA CZ a.s.

Schoenherr advised Raiffeisen Bank International AG and Raiffeisenbank a.s. ("Raiffeisenbank") on the acquisition of AKCENTA CZ a.s., a leading CEE/SEE provider of FX and payment services to European SMEs and HNWI. The acquisition will allow Raiffeisenbank to provide instant/short time window payment services, including cross-border payment and FX speculative trades. AKCENTA CZ a.s. will work closely with Raiffeisenbank’s foreign exchange and payment transaction unit, but will not be fully integrated into Raiffeisenbank. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be closed by the end of May.

"We were happy to provide Raiffeisenbank our extensive expertise in the payment industry sector steering this complex transaction to a successful signing," said partner Vladimír Čížek who together with his team recently advised on another successful payment services industry transaction in the Czech Republic (Komerční banka a,s. / KB SmartSolutions, s.r.o. on the acquisition of a stake in Platební instituce Roger a.s., a leading fintech company operating fully digital supply chain financing tools and an online receivables investment platform).

Raiffeisen Bank International AG is Austria's second-largest bank with a balance sheet total of EUR 164bln (as per 30 June 2020). It operates as a corporate and investment bank, offering corporate, structured and trade financing, investment banking, factoring, lease financing, and payment and custody services. Raiffeisen serves Austria and Central and Eastern Europe. The bank offers a full range of retail banking services in Eastern Europe and has around 46,000 employees and 16.7 million customers.

Raiffeisenbank a.s. is a member of the Austrian Raiffeisen Group and is the fifth-largest bank on the Czech market. It serves its clients at more than 130 branches throughout the Czech Republic, providing a wide range of banking services to private and corporate clientele.

AKCENTA CZ a.s. is a leading CEE/SEE provider of FX and payment services to European SMEs and HNWI. The company has more than 20 years of experience with financial services in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Germany and France, where it serves over 43,000 clients. Client transaction volume in 2020 was almost EUR 7bln.

Schoenherr's Prague M&A team provided comprehensive transactional advice to RBI, including due diligence with a special focus on IP/licensing matters, transaction structuring and transaction documentation drafting and negotiation. Additionally, the team will assist with regulatory filings with the Czech National Bank and will be obtaining competition clearance from the Czech Competition Authority.

The Schoenherr team advising on the transaction was led by Vladimír Čížek (partner) and Michal Jendželovský (attorney at law). The team also consisted of Rudolf Bicek (attorney at law), Eva Bajáková (attorney at law), Claudia Bock (attorney at law), Viktor Pakosta (attorney at law), Matěj Šarapatka (attorney at law), Marie Gremillot (attorney at law) and Jáchym Bém (associate).

The sellers, Mr Milan Lacina and AKCENTA GROUP SE, were represented by TARPAN Legal.