DLA Piper advises Irish company Navitas on SPAC IPO

DLA Piper has advised Navitas Semiconductor Limited (Navitas) on its merger with NYSE listed special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Live Oak Acquisition Corp. II. The transaction, which values the combined entity at an enterprise value of USD1,04 billion, will result in Navitas becoming a publicly-traded company on a national exchange under a new ticker symbol.

Navitas Semiconductor is focused on gallium nitride (GaN), a next-generation semiconductor technology that runs up to 20x faster than legacy silicon, and enables up to 3x more power and 3x faster charging in half the size and weight. As of 1 April, 2021, over 18 million Navitas GaNFast™ power integrated circuits (ICs) had been shipped to customers including Dell, Lenovo, Xiaomi, OPPO, Amazon and Belkin, with zero reported field failures.

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the boards of Live Oak II and Navitas, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021, subject to approval by Navitas’ shareholders.

DLA Piper acted as global legal counsel to Navitas, with a team led out of the firm’s Dublin office by partner and Head of Tax in Ireland, Maura Dineen, alongside tax associate Patrick O’Donovan, corporate partner Matthew Cole, legal director Micheál Mulvey and associate, Dara McDonald also advised on the transaction.

Maura Dineen commented: “This is a landmark deal for Navitas, a company that was formed with the vision to revolutionize the world of power electronics while addressing significant sustainability challenges for our planet. We are proud to have helped them to enter the public capital markets and look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength.”