Norton Rose Fulbright advises Vodafone Germany on the acquisition of grandcentrix

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Vodafone Germany on the acquisition of Internet of Things (IoT) specialist grandcentrix. With this acquisition, the Dusseldorf-based telecommunications group intends to expand its value chain and further expand its IoT business.

As a future Vodafone company, grandcentrix will work closely with the existing Vodafone IoT, innovation and sales teams but will continue to operate as a separate unit. The two managing directors, Ralf Rottmann and Martin Willnow, will remain on board, along with the more than 150 employees, who are mostly software and hardware developers and engineers. The existing company headquarters in Cologne and Dortmund will also remain unchanged.

The Norton Rose Fulbright team was led by Munich partner Katrin Stieß (corporate/M&A/venture capital) and included Munich partners Cornelia Marquardt (employment law) and Frank Henkel (corporate/M&A/venture capital) as well as Frankfurt partner Christoph Ritzer (data protection, information technology) and Hamburg counsel Tim Schaper (merger control).

The in-house legal team of Vodafone Germany included Timo Seidel, Christopher Hasenkamp, Christoph Backert and Anke Weihe.