Lawyer headcount 264
Partners 90
Revenue €257m (+6%)
Offices Berlin, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Shanghai
Key clients General Electric, KKR, METRO, RWE, Siemens
Managing partners Dirk Bliesener, Georg Seyfarth
Recent work highlights Advising RWE on the €5bn IPO of innogy on the Frankfurt stock exchange – the largest IPO since 2000 and the fourth largest in German history; advising KKR on its acquisition of Airbus Defence Electronics Business Companies; Linde on its merger with Praxair.
‘It was the best year since the financial crisis, so we are basically back to 2006/07,’ says Hengeler Mueller co-managing partner Georg Seyfarth. As a transaction powerhouse, there have been deals aplenty for the firm: ‘M&A activity is just as strong as last year; the firm has just been so extremely busy.’
Alongside French best friend Bredin Prat, Hengeler recently advised PSA in its acquisition of General Motors’ Opel and Vauxhall businesses. General Motors was advised by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Seyfarth describes the €1.3bn deal as ‘a real highlight transaction in terms of public attention’.
Among the big-ticket deals, he points to the €38.2bn Praxair-Linde merger of equals, one of the biggest European deals in 2016, which will create the world’s largest supplier of industrial gases. Together with Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Linklaters, Hengeler is advising Linde.
‘Targets are so scarce, and there’s so much money in the system, private equity houses are willing to go into situations with a difficult shareholder set-up.’
Georg Seyfarth, Hengeler Mueller
In addition to advising Bosch on the fallout from the Volkswagen emissions scandal, and participating in the three largest German IPOs last year, including the €5bn IPO of innogy, Hengeler also had a notably strong year in private equity (PE). The firm was involved in eight of the 12 largest PE transactions in Germany valued at over €1bn, including: Helios/Kliniken/Quirónsalud/CVC Capital Partners (€5.8bn); The Blackstone Group/OfficeFirst/IVG (€3.3bn); KION Group/Dematic/AEA Investors, and Teachers’ Private Capital (€2.9bn).
‘Targets are so scarce, and there’s so much money in the system, private equity houses are willing to go into situations with a difficult shareholder set-up,’ says Seyfarth. He expects strong PE activity to continue as investment increases, especially in fintech.
Despite the numerous press reports of thousands of City bankers potentially relocating to Frankfurt, Hengeler has ‘intensely discussed’ with its European best friends exactly what the implications of Brexit will be for all the firms in the alliance. Among financial institutions with contingency plans, he identifies ’10 to 15 which have reserved our services and said they intend to engage Hengeler in Brexit matters going forward’.
Hengeler also appointed five new partners last year of which three are female. ‘In the last three years, we’ve had seven partner promotions and five were female. Diversity has significantly increased within the firm,’ says Seyfarth.