The Birmingham office of international law firm DLA Piper is celebrating two major deals pushed through in the teeth of the economic crisis.

The firm, which has operations in 25 countries and which is the world’s largest legal services organisation, advised materials testing company EAG Ltd – eventually taken over following an £85 million bid battle – and QA-IQ Investments (UK) on its £10 million hostile acquisition of Xpertise Group.

EAG (Evans Analytical Group) is a global leader in surface analysis and materials characterisation. It helps customers to develop better, faster, more reliable products and manufacturing processes.

EAG works predominantly for the semiconductor, biosciences, communications, laser/optic, data storage, automotive, defence, and aerospace industries.

It has more than 2,600 clients in 35 countries, its head office is in Leeds, and it has over 15 locations throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. The AIM-listed company, which only floated last year in a deal advised by DLA, saw bids come in from EAG Inc backed by US group Odyssey Investment Partners and SVTC Technologies, a Silicon Valley business.

EAG Inc eventually won and the deal has since gone unconditional.

DLA Piper offices in Birmingham, New York, Frankfurt, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo all played a part.

Birmingham corporate partner Charles Cook said: “The ability of DLA to provide a single source for global legal advice, both on the original IPO and on the takeover was a key element.” But, commenting on the global financial troubles, he went on: “The final bid was the conclusion of a six-month process and I suspect that if we started that process today we would struggle.

“It was absolutely a good result. I think it was a relief for shareholders to be able to realise their investments in the current climate.

“It was another example of DLA’s ability to handle multi-jurisdictional transactions.”

QA-IQ, majority owned by private equity house Englefield, is the leading IT training business in the UK.

It swooped on Leeds-based Xpertise, a rival, putting in a 150p per share bid, rising to 165p if it was recommended.

The transaction depended on Xpertise dropping its own move to buy Parity Training, the number eight player in the sector.

With the support of 46.4 per cent of Xpertise shareholders already in the bag, including five institutional investors, the board subsequently accepted the higher offer.

It too has since gone unconditional. It means that QA-IQ now has more than 200 instructors delivering over 800 different courses across 27 centres throughout the UK.

The company has some 5,000 SME and corporate clients, including RBS, Vodafone, the Ministry of Defence, O2, and Unilever, and is the undisputed leader in the UK IT training market.

Mr Cook said: “It was a good example of the advisory team working well together to provide firm strategic advice.”

Looking to the wider market, he added: “We have seen activity levels maintained in the first three-quarters although clearly there is uncertainty in the market.

“There are still deals being done, and in particular we are seeing the corporate acquirers coming to the fore.

Fortunately for us our European and Middle East offices also remain very busy,” Mr Cook said.