Linklaters advises CACEIS on an agreement with Royal Bank of Canada relating to the acquisition of the activities of RBC Investor Services in Europe

Linklaters advises CACEIS, the asset servicing banking group, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole S.A. and Santander, with a view to signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for the acquisition of RBC Investor Services operations in Europe.

The Memorandum of Understanding relates to the acquisition by CACEIS of the European asset servicing activities of RBC Investor Services and its associated center of excellence located in Malaysia. These services will include custody, global custody FX, fund administration, transfer agency, middle office and securities lending.

This transaction would allow CACEIS to strengthen its positioning in asset servicing, increasing its assets under administration by nearly €1.2 trillion, and its assets under custody by nearly €0.5 trillion. The finalization of the agreements remains subject to consultation with the CACEIS staff representative bodies and to obtaining the required regulatory and antitrust authorizations. Completion of the transaction is expected to take place by the end of the third quarter of 2023.

The Linklaters team is led from Paris by partners Alain Garnier and Pierre Thomet and associates Louis Prades, Chloé Polo and Abdullah Konate, in Corporate M&A and composed of partner Géric Clomes and associate Cécile Romanin, in Employment Law ; partner Ngoc-Hong Ma and associates Jihane Guyot and Stanislas Haurens, in Banking and Financial Regulation ; partner Sonia Cissé and associates Faustine Piechaud and Julia Loiseau, in Intellectual Property and Technologies and Data Protection ; associates Marine Hennequin, Camille Lapeyre Sabatie de Chavardes and Farah Alabed, in Real Estate Law ; partner Cyril Boussion and associate Alexandra Mourlon, in Tax Law ; partner Pierre Zelenko and associates Guillaume de Meersman and Maëlys Duval, in Antitrust. The Luxembourg, London, Brussels and New York offices and the law firms Lenz & Staehelin (Switzerland), Ogier (Channel Islands), Arthur Cox (Ireland) and Rahmat Lim & Partners (Malaysia) were also involved.