Baker McKenzie Austria advised the international consulting firm Accenture on the takeover of ARZ Allgemeines Rechenzentrum GmbH (ARZ), a company specializing in technology services in the banking sector. A central aspect of this complex transaction was negotiating new IT outsourcing agreements with all involved banks as well as advising on banking supervisory law aspects of the outsourcing. Accenture announced the closing of the deal on December 1, 2022. The takeover of ARZ (including its entire staff) will expand Accenture's cloud-based platform-as-a-service offering for banks, ranging from core banking services via online banking services to regulatory services for bank customers across Europe.
"The acquisition of ARZ promotes our vision to develop a new innovative cloud-based banking services platform that uses technologies from IBM, Microsoft and SAP," says Roland Smertnig, Senior Managing Director of the Financial Services division with Accenture in Europe. "We will establish a large-scale 'Center of Excellence' in Innsbruck, which will assist banks in moving key functions to the cloud, developing new business models and reinventing customer services."
Before the takeover, ARZ had been majority-owned by the Volksbank Group and the Hypobank Group as well as by other private banks. ARZ's approximately 600 employees joined Accenture and continue to work at their current locations in Vienna and Innsbruck.
The project's inhouse legal lead was Marco Lechner, Legal Director, Accenture DACH.
"We are very pleased to have assisted Accenture in the successful closing of this important transaction," says Gerhard Hermann, Head of Baker McKenzie's Corporate/M&A Practice Group. "This project is a milestone for IT outsourcing in compliance with data protection and regulatory requirements in Austria," adds Lukas Feiler, Head of Baker McKenzie's IPTech Practice Group. The advice rendered in connection with the takeover of ARZ covered several areas of law, in particular corporate law, IT law, banking supervisory law, employment law, IP law and antitrust law.
Team Austria:
Gerhard Hermann, Claudia Fochtmann-Tischler, Teresa Stüttler (Corporate/M&A)
Lukas Feiler, Alexander Hofmann, Alissa Forstner (IPTech)
Robert Wippel, Balint Ozsvar (Banking/Finance)
Philipp Maier, Victoria Fink and Andrea Haiden (Employment)
Andreas Traugott, Nina Lenhard, Katerina Schenkova (Antitrust)
Team Germany:
Peter Wand, Denise Tayler (Corporate, M&A)