DLA Piper advises Vision-Box sale to Amadeus

DLA Piper advised the co-founders and Keensight Capital on the sale of Vision-Box to Amadeus, for an enterprise value of approximately EUR320 million. Founded in 2001, Vision-Box is a leading global provider of solutions for air travel, border control and ID management applications offering a multi-stakeholder software orchestration platform for end-to-end traveller-centric ecosystem management, coupled with state-of-the-art biometric hardware touchpoints. Headquartered in Portugal, Vision-Box has 15 centres of excellence and offices around the world.

Keensight Capital is one of the leading European Growth Buyout firms with deep experience in technology and healthcare sectors. It has been an investor in Vision-Box since 2015, alongside the co-founders Miguel Leitmann and Bento Correia, and has supported the company and its management during a period of very strong growth.

Amadeus is a major multinational technology company focusing on the global travel and tourism industry. The acquisition of Vision-Box will bring new capabilities around biometrics hardware and software, adding border control solutions to the Amadeus portfolio.

The DLA Piper team was led by Nuno Azevedo Neves (Country Managing Partner and head of Corporate practice area), with partner Stéphanie Sá Silva and associate Diogo Mendes Almeida (both Corporate), who co-coordinated the transaction. They were supported by partners João Costa Quinta, Daniel Reis and Margarida Leitão Nogueira, senior associate Vanessa Patrocínio and junior associate Mariana Martins Fernandes (all Intellectual Property & Technology); partner Catarina Santos Ferreira, senior associate Sara Leitão, associate José Martins Esfola and junior associate Joana Varela Teixeira (all Employment); partners Miguel Mendes Pereira and Vanessa Antunes, senior associate Ricardo Violante Teixeira, associate Beatriz Ribeiro Fernandes and junior associate Ana Wallis Carvalho (all Litigation & Regulatory); partner Ana Carvalho and associate Ana Carolina Fernandes (both Tax); partner Luís Filipe Carvalho and associate Joana Mergulhão (both Real Estate) and junior associate André Moreira Simões (Corporate).

Nuno Azevedo Neves, Country Managing Partner, DLA Piper Portugal said: “This was a complex transaction requiring the involvement of several multidisciplinary legal teams in several jurisdictions worldwide. As a global law firm with an office in Portugal, it highlights DLA Pipers’ unique ability to deliver value to Clients in complex multijurisdictional transactions, taking advantage of our global footprint as one integrated team with global presence. We are also very pleased to be part of the extraordinary journey of Vision-Box, a Portuguese visionary and technology multinational company.”