Deals & Cases
MLL Legal advised Olympia-Verlag on a strategic joint venture with Ringier
MLL Legal advised the German publishing house Olympia-Verlag and its affiliate kicker ventures on a strategic joint venture with Ringier Sports Media Group, which will make available a new digital sports offer to the Swiss public. Key part of the new sports ecosystem is a Swiss version of the famous German kicker app. In a first phase, it will offer a comprehensive football coverage to the Swiss sports community. The offer will continuously be extended to cover the entire Swiss sport landscape and be complemented by various existing offers from Ringier’s European network.
Find Ringier’s press release here and Olympia’s press release here.
MLL Legal advised Olympia on all legal aspects of the transaction, including the structuring of the joint venture from a corporate, data and ICT perspective and the negotiation of all transaction agreements.
MLL Legal also advised on all antitrust aspects and coordinated the merger control filings for the transaction. The transaction was cleared by all competent antitrust authorities in Germany and Austria without any restrictions or conditions.
Olympia is a leading German media group and the publisher of kicker, the sports media brand with the widest reach in the German-speaking area. As a premium provider of both print and digital sports content, Olympia combines its flagship brands kicker and ALPIN with a broad portfolio of offerings, including digital sports platforms, live tickers, podcasts, and more.
Since its launch in 2022, Ringier Sports Media Group merges top national sports media with innovative global tech. With 7 brands across 7 European countries, RSMG reaches more than 20 million fans with its platforms monthly – powered by more than 400 colleagues.
MLL Legal’s team was led by Christian Rebell (Partner M&A) and further included Nicola Benz (Partner ICT), Renato Bucher (Partner Competition), Cédric Saladin (Associate M&A), Dominic Schopf (Associate Competition) and Carla Bölsterli (Junior Associate M&A). A team of Noerr, consisting of Till Steinvorth, Carolin Schuette and Lorenz Jarass, was responsible for the German merger control filing. Christine Dietz and Christoph Raab from Binder Grösswang took care of the Austrian filing.
