Lawyer headcount 307
Partners 64
Revenue €70m (-10%)
Offices Belgrade, Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Kiev, Ljubljana, Prague, Sarajevo, Sofia, Tirana, Vienna, Warsaw, Zagreb
Key clients REWE Group, PORR, Erste Group Bank, FACC, Advent International
Managing partners Erik Steger, Richard Wolf, Nikolaus Paul
Recent work highlights Advising Allianz Capital Partners and several insurance companies of the Allianz Group on the acquisition of a 49% stake in Gas Connect Austria from OMV; representing Total on the €3.2bn sale of its speciality chemicals business Atotech to The Carlyle Group; advising South African-listed healthcare brands company Ascendis Health on its acquisition of a 100% stake in Hungary-headquartered Scitec Nutrition for €170m.
Despite a 10% fall in revenue last year, Vienna-headquartered Wolf Theiss remains the highest-ranking Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) firm in The Euro Elite. Managing partner Erik Steger attributes the drop in turnover in part to losing seven partners in the last 12 months, notably in Vienna and Warsaw.
‘Obviously whenever you lose partners some revenue goes with them. However, last year was surprisingly successful, as we managed to maintain a level of profitability that we did not expect.’
With 307 lawyers, including 64 partners, 13 offices across Europe and 60% of its lawyers based outside Austria, Wolf Theiss remains less affected by local competition and remains focused on significant cross-border work.
In terms of future geographical growth and restructuring in specific countries, Steger sees Hungary, Slovakia and Poland as having ‘a tendency towards nationalism, which is never a very promising proposal to foreign investors, and firms like ours. However, it does benefit local firms, who do work for the government and their business is thriving’.
And while he says it is hard to identify the most productive offices in the network as most of the work is cross-border, Steger identifies Hungary, Slovenia and Austria as the standout performers last year. Looking ahead, he is expecting further growth in Romania and Poland, but ‘nothing extraordinary’.
‘I do think Hungary and Austria by comparison might shrink a bit as you depend on mega transactions to maintain the success of last year, none of which were repeat business so you go back to normal work levels, which otherwise looks like you are shrinking,’ he says.
He believes further changes in the CEE legal market are happening gradually but more visibly. ‘You see local firms gaining knowledge and people who are more capable of servicing larger clients. You often see those people leaving the multinational firms either via spin-offs, where international firms do not make up partners where it doesn’t make business sense to do so, or if they leave jurisdictions of no particular strategic priority for them,’ he says.