KWM advises CIP Capital Fund II, L.P. and Carco Group, Inc. on their cross-border acquisition of the pre-employment screening division from Blue Umbrella

In January 2019, King & Wood Mallesons ("KWM") acted as global lead counsel to the US private equity fund CIP Capital Fund II, L.P. (the "CIP Fund") on its acquisition of the pre-employment screening ("PES") division of Blue Umbrella through its portfolio company Cisive (being its trade name). The acquisition of Blue Umbrella's PES business enables Cisive to expand its presence in Asia, EMEA, and South America, to accelerate its global expansion, and to better support existing global clients through localized operations and customer support.

Cisive is a global provider of compliance-driven human capital management and risk management solutions. The company's core onboarding and pre-employment background screening offering provides clients with a streamlined, high quality, and regulatory compliant solution. Blue Umbrella is a leading provider of due diligence research and cutting-edge third party compliance technologies.

As the global lead counsel to the CIP Fund, KWM  was responsible for drafting and negotiation of all major transaction documents, and coordinated with local lawyers to conduct due diligence in multiple jurisdictions in Asia.  The KWM team combined expertise from investment and M&A, intellectual property, data security, privacy protection, and labour practices and conducted in-depth due diligence and legal analysis on a number of matters in these areas. KWM managed to close the transaction at the end of 2018 in order to meet the expected timeline of all parties and was able to design and negotiate various tailor-made arrangements for the client. With quality and efficient services, KWM helped the client to successfully complete the complex transaction in a timely manner, and was highly recognized by the client, demonstrating KWM's competitive and well-rounded capabilities in cross-jurisdiction and cross-disciplinary matters.

This project was led by partner Helena Huang who specializes in corporate M&A/PE funds and investments (Beijing/Hong Kong) and corporate partner Ricky Lioe (Hong Kong), and key team members also included our IP and data compliance partner Peter Bullock (Hong Kong).