Waselius & Wist represents one of the world’s largest companies in personal care products in the Finnish aspects of its intended acquisition of the European wide business of its competitor.
Value: in excess of EUR 1 billion
For more information, please contact Mr. Jan Waselius or Ms. Lotta Pohjanpalo.
Mikko Eerola has been appointed new managing partner of Waselius & Wist as of 1 January 2012. Mikko will replace Tarja Wist, who has served as Managing Partner since the establishment of the firm in 1997. Tarja continues active client work and as member of the Board.
Mikko joined Waselius & Wist in 1998 and was appointed partner in 2004. Mikko’s main areas of practice are M&A and EU and competition, in which areas he is ranked among the leading practitioners in Finland.
Mikko will continue to develop the firm as a client-focused, high-quality Finnish business law firm that attracts the best legal talents and takes pride in assisting the most demanding clients.
“I very much look forward to taking up my new role. I am sure that with the help of all of us we continue to develop the firm in what we believe constitutes a key in successfully providing legal services in the years ahead: focusing on quality, professionalism and commitment in whatever we do”, Mikko comments on his appointment.
Jan Waselius, the senior partner and co-founder of Waselius & Wist is confident: “Mikko has been with our firm nearly from the beginning of its establishment. He has shown strong entrepreneurial skills and is well regarded by clients and his peers. We are all very grateful that he has accepted the role as the firm’s new managing partner and are confident that he will lead the firm in the right direction and that the firm will continue to develop and prosper under his regime. I feel that the management of the firm has been transferred into good and capable new hands”.
Jan Waselius continues: “I would like to express the firm’s special thanks to Tarja and her tireless and valuable work not only in holding the position of the firm’s managing partner for an exceptionally long time but also in developing and building up the firm’s administrative, management and reporting systems from virtually scratch. The significance of Tarja’s work will benefit the firm for a long time to come and will form an excellent basis for Mikko to take over and to start implementing his views on taking the firm further”.
As a consequence of the economic downtrend, financiers have more often been forced to take over a debtor company in order to secure their interests under a facility agreement. The tax treatment of any potential credit losses following such takeovers has raised some concerns, as the Finnish Business Income Tax Act includes a general provision according to which credit losses relating to loans/facilities given to a company where the lender owns more than 10% of shares are not tax-deductible.
The Supreme Administrative Court has, however, very recently rendered a decision (KHO 10.1.2012/6), according to which credit losses that relate to loans/facilities given to a company prior to the financer (a bank) acquiring 10% (or more) of the equity/shares in the debtor company remain tax-deductible. The Court reasoned that such loans/facilities do not differ from financing given by the bank to companies where the bank has no ownership and a forced takeover scenario should generally not lead to the bank ending up in a worse off position from a tax point of view. Accordingly, it is expected that this decision will facilitate future enforcement of security interests.
For further information, please contact Mr. Niklas Thibblin.
As of 1 January 2012, the corporate income tax rate in Finland was reduced from 26% to 24.5%. This is a welcome change, a permanent saving for companies of all sizes.
At the same time, the tax rate for capital income (including capital gains) was increased from 28% to 30%. In addition, for capital income exceeding 50,000 EUR, the applicable tax rate is 32%.
Further, the maximum amount of dividends that can be distributed tax-exempt to a private individual from a non-listed company was reduced from 90,000 EUR to 60,000 EUR.
For further information, please contact Mr. Niklas Thibblin.
published by Law Business Research
Authors: Mr. Jan Waselius, Ms. Tanja Jussila and Ms. Kirsi Peltomäki
published in the PLC Cross-border Competition and Leniency Handbooks
Authors: Mr. Mikko Eerola and Ms. Lotta Pohjanpalo