About Aino Makisalo

Aino is a senior associate in our finance practice and is based in New York. Aino represents financial institutions, private equity firms, and corporate borrowers in a range of leveraged finance transactions, including acquisition financings and cross-border transactions.

Prior to joining Freshfields, Aino was an associate in the New York office of Latham & Watkins and a member of the Finance Department and Banking Practice. Prior to Latham, Aino was an associate in the Helsinki office of Roschier, Attorneys Ltd., one of the leading Nordic law firms, where she focused on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, divestments, and other types of transactions. She also provided regulatory advice for investment funds and advised on a variety of electronic products and payment services.

Before her career in law, Aino worked briefly in Brussels as a political adviser for a Finnish Member of the European Parliament.

Recent work

• TriNet Group on its tender offer, share repurchase and related financing transactions.
• Committee of independent directors of the board of Qualtrics on the $12.5bn all-cash sale of the company to a private equity consortium (the largest private equity transaction of the year).
• Holcim on its $1.293 billion acquisition of Duro-Last.
• Jungheinrich AG on its $375 million acquisition of Storage Solutions, Inc.
• London Stock Exchange Group on its acquisition of AcadiaSoft. 
• Berkeley Lights on its acquisition of IsoPlexis.
• Coupa on its pending $8 billion sale to Thoma Bravo.
• BP on its $4.1 billion take-private of Archaea Energy.
• Cargill and the buyer consortium on the first SOFR- based TLB syndicated in the NY market in connection with the $4.3 billion take-private of Nasdaq-listed Sanderson Farms Inc. and its merger with Wayne Farms.
• Cinven and UFinet on its $1.135 billion term B loan and $175 million revolving credit facility to finance Cinven’s acquisition of a majority interest in Ufinet.
• Trinet on its $500m private offering of senior notes and new revolving credit facility.
• WorldRemit, the digital cross-border payments company, on the financing aspects of its acquisition of Sendwave, a rapidly growing app-based remittance company.
• Cinven on the debt financing of its acquisition of Ufinet Latam.
• London Stock Exchange Group on the payoff of its credit facilities in connection with its acquisition of Refinitiv Inc.
• AstraZeneca on its pending $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals.