Pierre-Hadrien Darriet

Pierre-Hadrien Darriet’s practice focuses on corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and capital markets matters. In recognition of his work, Mr. Darriet was named one of Best Lawyers’ 2024 Ones to Watch.

His representations include:

• Air France-KLM in connection with Apollo’s €500 million investment in 2023 into an operating affiliate of Air France that owns a pool of components dedicated to the airline’s engineering and maintenance activities; Apollo’s €500 million investment into an affiliate of Air France that owns engineering and maintenance assets of the airline; corporate and governance matters relating to its 2022 €2.256 billion capital increase with preferential subscription rights; and corporate and governance matters relating to the €4 billion recapitalization measures approved by the European Commission in April 2021
• SCOR SE, the fifth-largest reinsurance group worldwide and which is listed on both Euronext Paris and the SIX Swiss Exchange, in the acquisition of 5.01% of its own shares from Covéa for €252 million upon the partial exercise of the call option granted by Covéa in 2021, and the subsequent sale of these shares to BNP Paribas Cardif; in its successful defense against a €8.3 billion unsolicited takeover proposal from Covéa, a French mutual insurance group and the largest shareholder of SCOR SE; and in connection with its defense against claims made by activist fund CIAM
• Westfield Corporation, an international retail property group, in connection with its US$24.7 billion business combination with Unibail-Rodamco, Europe’s largest listed commercial property company, through Australian law schemes of arrangement and a stapling of the shares of Unibail-Rodamco with the shares of a Dutch subsidiary. This stapled security structure, which included the shares of a publicly traded French company, was a first under French law
• Iliad, a listed telecom group and parent company of French telecom company Free, in connection with the acquisition of a 75% stake in Jaguar Network, a leading developer of technologies for the cloud, telecom and smart cities markets in France
• L’Occitane International S.A., a global luxury cosmetics group based in Europe and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in connection with its proposed acquisition of the Elemis Group for US$900 million, as well as on the financing of the acquisition
• Renault in connection with its agreements with Nissan regarding the rebalanced cross-shareholding between the two companies (including the transfer by Renault of 28.4% of Nissan shares into a French trust), the reinforcement of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance’s governance and the investment agreement of Nissan, as strategic investor, in Ampere; its proposed (but withdrawn) €32.6 billion 50/50 merger transaction with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles; and additional matters relating to the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance
• Daimler in its disposals of certain dealerships in France in connection with the company’s strategic plan for its distribution network
• the Beaufour family’s trust in connection with the reorganization of the controlling shareholding structure of Ipsen, a French publicly listed pharmaceutical company
• Silver Lake Partners in its €275 million term loan B and revolving credit facilities in connection with its acquisition of Groupe Meilleurtaux, a leading French online and mobile financial services provider; and in connection with the financing of its acquisition of Silae SAS, a cloud-based payroll and HR software specialist