Ropes & Gray Advises ERM on its Sale to KKR

In The News
May 17, 2021

Ropes & Gray has advised ERM, the world’s largest pure-play sustainability consultancy, and the ERM Partner shareholders, on the sale of ERM to KKR, a leading global investment firm.

As part of the deal, which announced today, KKR will acquire a majority position in ERM from OMERS Private Equity and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), with ERM’s Partners and management team remaining as minority investors.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter 2021, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

Over the last 50 years, ERM has built deep and broad technical expertise in environmental health, safety, risk and social matters with a first-class team of more than 5,500 purpose-driven consultants, including 580 Partners, across 150 offices in over 40 countries.

Ropes & Gray acted as co-Counsel to ERM and for the ERM Partner shareholders. Allen & Overy acted as co-Counsel to ERM and for the institutional shareholders, OMERS and AIMCo.

The Ropes & Gray team was led by private equity transactions partner John Newton, with private equity counsel Shona Ha, associates Craig Jourdan and Victoria Srivastava and trainee Olivia Bennett, all based in London. Other members of the team included tax partner Brenda Coleman and counsel Chris Agnoli (London); government enforcement counsel Sean Seelinger (London), partner Ama Adams (Washington DC) and counsel Brendan Hanifin (Chicago); US benefits partner Loretta Richard (Boston) and Aryeh Schwebel (New York); capital markets partner Craig Marcus and associate Rachel Lehman (Boston); and antitrust counsel Deidre Johnson.