With its characteristic appearance, Hotel La Tour had been a striking part of northern Aarhus, but in future the site will accommodate an iconic building at least just as striking: Denmark’s tallest residential construction.
Aberdeen Standard is behind the construction, and in 2020 they took over the land from the owner of Hotel La Tour, who through several years had obtained legal advice from Holst, in preparing the sale.
Hence, Holst, assisted the sellers, among others, with the statement of assets and liabilities, contracts, dialogues with the bank, and negotiations with the buyers, before partner Claus Hedegaard Eriksen could carry out closing on the sale of the site.
It is expected that in 2023, the first residents will be able to move into the tallest residential construction in Denmark.
Day Birger et Mikkelsen, a fashion and clothing business founded in 1997, was taken over in 2019 by a buyer consortium following several years with declining financial results.
With partner Anders Hedetoft as facilitator, Holst, represented the buyer consortium during the entire process right from the beginning until the end; services included legal advice on agreements, financing, closing, etc.
Hence, the assistance from Holst, also comprised a legal due diligence and the drafting of various agreements and contracts, including all legal aspects pertaining to taking over staff, assignment of trademark rights domestically and abroad, entering into agency and franchise agreements, and more. A part of the agreement setup was also that the seller was to reinvest some of the money in the new setup, and a new structure was to be established in the holding company.
The agreement was concluded on the basis of a short and intense negotiation process.
At present, the buyer consortium is successfully realising a turnaround of the acquired activities.
When a market-leading Danish leasing company took the initiative to buy a competing company, it quickly became clear that both companies were equally interested in a successful deal.
In the liquidity-needing leasing industry, there was on the one side the acquiring company holding excess cash, and on the other side was a company full of opportunities which could not be realised because of lacking liquidity.
With partner Anders Hedetoft in charge, legal due diligence was carried out and all transaction documents drawn up. All negotiations were finalised within a short time span.
As is generally known, the delivery of the new IC4 trains to the Danish railways was that much delayed that DSB wanted to terminate the agreement with the supplier, Italian Ansaldo Breda.
This triggered Ansaldo Breda’s attorney to approach Holst, and partner Carsten Led-Jensen, who then assisted Ansaldo Breda in the intense negotiations about the terms for a termination, under which DSB had claimed damages amounting to several billions of Danish kroner.
The negotiations went on for over a year and contemplated a thorough knowledge of the very comprehensive delivery agreement and of any preceding settlement agreements and – especially – a noticeable sense for the tone of negotiations, negotiation tactics and positions.
To Ansaldo Breda, the result was a favourable agreement according to which they were still to deliver the train sets and were entitled to deliver spare parts; and the amount they ended up paying in damages was substantially smaller than the amount initially claimed by DSB.
When building the City Circle line (phase 4 of the Copenhagen Metro), the Italian turnkey con-tractor wanted to terminate the agreement with one of the sub-suppliers, MT Højgaard, on the grounds that the turnkey contractor could perform the works themselves, although it was ac-tually MT Højgaard who was responsible for the works.
Therefore, MT Højgaard approached partner Carsten Led-Jensen for assistance; first of all to negotiate a withdrawal from the project, and secondly – if needed – to represent the interests of MT Højgaard in an arbitration case.
Following 5 intensive months of negotiations, the parties reached a mutual agreement; an agreement with significant financial value to MT Højgaard.
The negotiations were made in English and contemplated a thorough knowledge of both the basis of contract, the underlying law, the technical, complicated project and – in particular – the capability of keeping a cool, strategic and tactical breadth of view during several months, although great values were at stake.