Cravath, Paul Hastings secure Daily Mail owner's insurance unit sell

Cravath, Swaine & Moore is steering the Daily Mail owner’s plans to sell its insurance unit to risk assessment firm Moody’s Corp, which has paired with Paul Hastings.

Daily Mail and General Trust plc, which owns and publishes the British newspaper, said on Thursday that it would sell its insurance risk business RMS to Moody’s for 1.425 billion pounds ($1.99 billion) in cash, according to a press release.

The Cravath team representing Daily Mail and General Trust is led by corporate partners Richard Hall and Andrew Elken on mergers and acquisitions matters. Hall is the head of the firm’s M&A practice for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

On the other side of the RMS deal, Paul Hastings has tapped Global Mergers & Acquisitions practice Chair Carl Sanchez and corporate partner Matthew Poxon to guide Moody’s.

Paul Hastings attorneys supporting the transaction include leveraged finance partner Danny Choi, alongside securities and capital markets practice co-head Frank Lopez and of counsel James Shea.

Sanchez and Lopez previously led the team that counseled Moody’s on its $700 million pick-up of Regulatory DataCorp, which provides anti-money laundering and customer data and due diligence services, according to a January 2020 press release.

Moody’s acquisition of RMS is expected to wrap up late in 2021’s third quarter.

RMS provides climate and natural disaster risk modeling for the global property and casualty insurance and reinsurance industries.