A team of Gleiss Lutz lawyers has advised Deutsche Post DHL Group on the sale of its shares in StreetScooter Engineering to international consortium ODIN Automotive S.à r.l. (Luxembourg). The deal includes the intellectual property for the D17 and D20 vehicle models as well as the two wholly-owned StreetScooter subsidiaries in Switzerland and Japan.
StreetScooter was founded in 2010 as part of a private research project and acquired by DPDHL in 2014. With more than 17,500 delivery vehicles used by DPDHL alone, with cargo space of 4 m3, 8 m3 and 20 m3, as well as smaller fleets in other European countries and Japan comprising a further 5,000 vehicles, StreetScooter has one of the largest electric van fleets in the world. StreetScooter Engineering currently operates a manufacturing facility in Germany that can produce up to 30,000 vehicles a year.
Deutsche Post DHL Group is home to the DHL and Deutsche Post brands. DHL offers a comprehensive range of parcel and international express shipping, freight transport and supply chain management services as well as e-commerce logistics solutions. Deutsche Post is Europe's leading postal and parcel service provider. The group employs around 570,000 people in over 220 countries and generated sales of more than EUR 66 billion in 2020.
ODIN Automotive S.à.r.l. is a financial holding company backed by several institutional and private global investment partners, including Sparta Capital Management in the United Kingdom, a major Chinese OEM, and a partner for contract manufacturing in North America.
The Gleiss Lutz team advising Deutsche Post DHL Group on the transaction included: Dr. Cornelia Topf (partner, lead), Antonius Mann (both M&A, Frankfurt), Dr. Herwig Lux (counsel), Dr. Christopher Noll (both IP), Dr. Simon Wagner (counsel, Commercial, all Stuttgart).
In-house, the transaction was handled by Dr. Friedrich Werk (M&A), Dr. Stephan Wachs (Antitrust) and Benjamin Heinke (IP/IT).
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