Leading East of England law firm, Birketts, working with an Austrian law firm, advised Wintersteiger AG on the acquisition of a controlling interest in Essex company Trials Equipment (UK) Ltd, based in Braintree. 

Trials Equipment (UK) Ltd was set up by Essex businessman Colin Coleman, originally as Coleman Engineering. It specialises in the design, manufacture, development and sale of agricultural trials machinery and equipment.

Wintersteiger AG is an international machinery and plant engineering group, with headquarters in Ried im Innkreis, Austria. Wintersteiger AG is a world market leader in its varied business fields of agricultural machinery, as well as ski and sports products. It employs more than 1,000 people worldwide.

Trials Equipment (UK) Ltd has enjoyed a working relationship with Wintersteiger AG for many years, having imported trials machinery of Wintersteiger AG for the UK and Irish markets. It is planned that the acquisition of Trials Equipment (UK) Ltd will further strengthen Wintersteiger AG’s market position in the UK.

The Birketts team was led by Partner, Nick Burnett in Chelmsford, who was assisted by lawyers from a number of disciplines, including Partner, Rafael Ruiz (Corporate), Senior Associates, Matthew Grindley (Property), Associate, Heidi Jones (Corporate), and Solicitors, Sabina Rooney and Tom Utting (Corporate), and Nicholas West and Abigail Hubert (Employment). 
 
Florestan Boxberg, CEO of Wintersteiger AG said, “The acquisition of a controlling interest in Trials Equipment Limited fits perfectly within the Wintersteiger Group, both in terms of supporting our global leadership position in our niche markets, and in terms of the company culture”. 
 
Harold Kostka, CFO of Wintersteiger AG added “Although transactions in the UK in general and the structure of this particular deal was vastly more complex in terms of documentation than most of our past acquisitions in continental Europe, Birketts did support us with a great fit of their wide team of specialists, and helped us with tremendous effort to hold our tight timeline.”

Nick Burnett of Birketts commented, “We were very pleased to be introduced to Wintersteiger AG by Austrian lawyer/colleague Alois Hutterer from Linz, with whom we have worked in the past. Wintersteiger’s long business relationship with Colin Coleman allowed for this transaction to be completed by all of those involved in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect. It was a great pleasure for all of us at Birketts to deal with the Wintersteiger team, as well as our Austrian legal colleague, Alois Hutterer and his team.”