Macfarlanes advises Allen & Overy on partnership with Inflexion to drive growth of aosphere

Macfarlanes has advised Allen & Overy (A&O) on its strategic partnership with leading mid-market private equity firm, Inflexion, relating to aosphere.

The legal and compliance data subscription platform will become a stand-alone entity with A&O retaining a significant minority stake in the profitable business it created in 2002.

As part of the transaction, Inflexion's Partnership Capital II fund will make a strategic investment alongside A&O and Endicott Capital, a US-based investor specialising in the information services industry.

aosphere serves over 725 blue-chip clients including banks, asset managers and corporates, providing online legal analysis on a subscription basis across a range of key compliance topics in complex areas such as financial derivatives, shareholder disclosure requirements, cross-border marketing, and data privacy. The platform creates efficiencies for users by providing standardised legal analysis on complex and multi-jurisdictional regulatory areas, maintaining up-to-date, high quality information working with local counsel across the globe.

The Macfarlanes team was led by corporate and M&A partners, Jessica Adam and Tim Redman; senior counsel, Felicity Powell; and senior associate, Dennis Mok. Tax advice was provided by Jeremy Moncrieff, and commercial and IP advice by Will Hedges.