Umicore Acquires OM Group Business

On July 31, 2003, Brussels, Belgium-based Umicore S.A. acquired the metals business of Cleveland, Ohio-headquartered OM Group, Inc. for approximately $1.1 billion. Pursuant to this transaction, which was announced on June 3, Umicore acquired OM Group’s automotive catalysts, fuel cells, metals chemistry, technical materials, jewellery and electroplating, and metals management businesses operated from various locations around the world.

Umicore was represented in Canada by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, with a team that included Terry Burgoyne, Frank Turner, Michael Hart, Andrée Blais and Nancy Diep; and in the U.S. and Germany by Hogan & Hartson LLP, with a team that included J. Hovey Kemp and Kevin Clayton in Washington, D.C., and Hans Seiler and Johannes Schulte in Berlin, and Catriona Hatton in Brussels and Phil Larson in Washington, D.C., represented Umicore in front of European and U.S. antitrust/competition authorities.

OM Group was represented in Canada by Donald Gibson, and Michael Quigley (tax) of McCarthy Tétrault LLP; and in the U.S. by Sean Peppard and Jude Nohra of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP in Cleveland. Deloitte & Touche provided tax and transaction structuring advice to Umicore. The Deloitte & Touche legal team was led by in-house counsel Anno Rainer in Brussels and Juergen Brokamp in Duesseldorf.