A team of lawyers from K&L Gates LLP has advised Groupe Le Duff, a global bakery and restaurant company, on its acquisition by merger of Bruegger’s Enterprises, a leading operator and franchisor of casual bakery-cafés that operates mainly in the northeastern United States and Canada.

With the merger, which closed yesterday, Bruegger’s joins Groupe Le Duff’s family of brands located across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, including the Dallas-based la Madeleine, a French country café chain with 60 locations throughout the southeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The combined company will become the world’s second largest operator in the café-bakery sector, with more than 1,100 restaurants and bakeries, approximately 13,400 employees and sales of $1.53 billion.

An affiliate of private investment firm Sun Capital Partners Inc. since 2003, Bruegger’s was founded in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983 and grew to become the third largest bakery-café concept in the United Sates. It is complemented by a group of Canadian brands that includes Timothy’s World Coffee, Michels Baguettes, and Mmmuffins under a Canadian company, ThreeCaf.

K&L Gates Dallas partners Soren Lindstrom and P. Gregory Hidalgo led the team of lawyers that advised Groupe Le Duff in the transaction, which included individuals across several of the firm’s offices and its corporate, mergers and acquisitions, international tax, antitrust, labor and employment, employee benefits, FDA, real estate, and environmental practices. Partners involved in the transaction included James Hunter Birch, Christie A. Newkirk, David Lee Fields, Peter F. Riley, and Wilson Chu, all of the Dallas office; Phillip M. Slinkard and Keith A. Shuley of the Austin office; Carol Pratt, Ph.D., from the firm’s Portland office; Douglas J. Ellis in Pittsburgh; and Brian K. McCalmon of the Washington, D.C., office.