Linklaters is advising longtime client DHL on its merger with Evri, which will see DHL Group take a significant minority stake in the combined business.
Sidley and Paul Weiss are acting for Evri and private equity owner Apollo, reprising their roles from Apollo’s £2.7 billion acquisition of the delivery firm last year.
Linklaters, Paul Weiss and Sidley Austin are steering the merger of delivery giants Evri and the UK arm of DHL in what’s shaping up to be the biggest UK logistics deal of the year.
The transaction will see DHL Group take a significant minority stake in the newly combined Evri business, creating a parcel and mail delivery powerhouse with over 2 billion annual deliveries.
The deal, announced on Wednesday (14 April), combines Evri’s vast UK scale with DHL’s van network and global e-commerce infrastructure. The merged group will include UK Mail (DHL’s business letter arm), marking Evri’s first move into the UK business letter market, and will tap into DHL’s international delivery network across Europe, the US and Asia.
Once completed, the group will bring together a team of over 30,000 couriers and van drivers, 12,000 employees, and a fleet of 8,000 vehicles.
Advising
Linklaters is acting for DHL, a long-standing client. The deal team is led by corporate partners Sushil Jacob and Emma Simpson, alongside managing associate Sarah Nicholson. The firm has a close relationship with the logistics giant - in 2023, they collaborated on a carbon-cutting initiative that saw Linklaters commit to using DHL shipments powered by sustainable aviation fuel.
On the other side, Sidley Austin and Paul Weiss are advising Evri and Apollo, reprising their roles from Apollo’s £2.7 billion acquisition of Evri from Advent last summer. Advent acquired Evri (then known as Hermes) in 2020, reportedly loaded it with more than £1 billion of debt and paid out an enormous £762 million dividend in 2022.
Sidley is running the corporate side, led by private equity partners Jonathon Hamill in London and Gerald Brant in New York.
Paul Weiss is handling financing and regulatory aspects, with London partners David Carmona - co-head of European alternative credit - and Annie Herdman leading. Herdman is a competition specialist and joined from Ropes & Gray last year. She was previously a partner at Kirkland alongside private equity stars Neel Sachdev and Roger Johnson, Paul Weiss’ London co-heads, who joined as part of the firm’s headline-making raid on Kirkland in the summer of 2023.
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