Paul Hastings advises Francisco Partners on Consignor merger

Paul Hastings has announced it advised on the combination of Oslo-based cloud Transport Administration Systems (TAS) platform Consignor with leading Swedish cloud TAS platform Unifaun. The transaction was conducted between the two companies’ leading shareholders, global investment firms Francisco Partners and Marlin Equity Partners (Marlin), which now own a majority of the combined business.

Paul Hastings’ London-based team was led by partner Anu Balasubramian and included partners Arun Birla, Pierre Kirch and associate Jamie Holdoway. The merger is the second time in two months that the law firm has advised Francisco Partners, having acted for it in its acquisition of automotive retail software provider CDK Global for $1.45bn last November. The investment firm has long been regarded as one of the most active technology-focused global investment firms, having raised over $24bn in committed capital and invested in more than 300 technology companies over its 20-year history.

Norwegian M&A specialist Aabø-Evensen acted as legal counsel to Francisco Partners alongside Paul Hastings, while counsel for Marlin was provided by Danish firm Plesner and Stockholm-based Cederquist.  

Unifaun and Consignor have separately established themselves as leaders in the cloud TAS solutions market and operate throughout the European transport ecosystem. The combination brings together the two scalable SaaS-based products and is intended to offer shippers, carriers, and parcel recipients globally “best-in-class” solutions for shipping and handling of goods. Additionally, the merger expands the combined company’s ability to address a range of TAS and other supply chain execution capabilities.

Consignor founder and CEO Peter Tang Thomsen said he believes the merger will allow the company to deliver what customers have been looking for in the form of an integrated suite of TAS solutions that will help them “reduce shipping costs while improving the overall delivery experience for constituents across the logistics value chain.”

Peter Chung, a managing director at Marlin, identified the TAS market as one with incredible growth potential, adding that the merger places the new company in a position to “capitalise on the secular tailwinds underpinning e-commerce growth.”