Dentons' name as a challenger brand is being felt by our competition in Europe and is further demonstrated by our dramatic rise in the European M&A league tables in H1 2016, where we continue to see consistently strong performance across many publications, firmly establishing our position as a major player in the market.

M&A league table highlights:

• Worldwide: #15 up 21 places by deal volume (Thomson Reuters)
• Europe: #15 up 44 places by deal value and #10 up 32 places by deal volume (Thomson Reuters)
• UK: #7 up 26 places by deal value and #3 up 17 places by deal volume (Thomson Reuters)
• Eastern Europe: #2 up 3 places by deal volume (Bloomberg Global)
• France: #8 up 4 places by deal volume (Bloomberg Global)
• Germany: #14 up 2 places by deal volume (Bloomberg Global)

During the analyzed period, our M&A team was involved in numerous high profile, cross-border deals throughout the region, which required Dentons’ close cooperation among multiple offices:

Advising AmRest Holdings SE on its acquisition of all partnership interests in Starbucks Coffee Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, the German subsidiary of the Starbucks group. Through this transaction, AmRest has acquired 144 equity stores and the license to operate and develop the Starbucks brand in Germany.

Advising KKR on the acquisition of French startup Captain Train by its British competitor Trainline. The latter was bought by KKR in 2015. The transaction, worth up to €200 million, is one of the biggest startup acquisitions in France in the past few years.

Advising NYX Gaming Group on its £270 million acquisition of OpenBet, the UK based, market leading online sports betting platform provider. This was shortly followed by the second completed acquisition for NYX in seven days, with its acquisition of Betdigital, for a total cash consideration of up to £24.5 million, a deal on which Dentons also advised.

We continued to strengthen our Corporate practice across the region with the expansion of our team in Germany through the opening of our office in Munich, led by Alexander von Bergwelt along with Corporate Partners Michael Malterer, and Igsaan Varachia and their team of 20 from Norton Rose Fulbright. We also welcomed Partner Luca Pocobelli and his team in Milan and subsequently opened an office in Rome, and we also expanded our team in CEE with the addition of Partner Chris Watkinson who is dividing his time between Prague and Budapest.

Christof Kautzsch, Co-Chair of Dentons' Europe Corporate group commented "Our success in the H1 2016 league tables reflects our teams’ dedication and consistent top performance as well as our growth as a firm, both of which now make us a major player in the market."

David Collins, UK head of Corporate and Global M&A Co-Chair added "As we continue to build the scale, breadth and quality of our corporate and M&A offering across Europe, it is particularly pleasing to see the validation of our growth strategy reflected in elevated rankings across the board in the deal league tables."

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