Kirkland & Ellis has hired Munich-based corporate partner Volkmar Bruckner from Weil, Gotshal & Manges following its loss of a seven-partner team in the city.
Bruckner focuses on private equity representing German and international clients in complex cross-border buyouts, carve-outs and other M&A transactions. Key clients include Siemens, Bain Capital, VM Capital, Canadian Solar and Q-Cells. Prior to joining Weil in 2015, Buckner was at Latham & Watkins for over eight years.
Kirkland took on Weil Gotshal’s banking head Stephen Lucas in 2014. Lucas left the firm just three years after he joined in June 2011 from Linklaters, where he was a banking partner, prior to which he was a partner at Magic Circle rival Clifford Chance.
In February, Kirkland lost a seven partner team in its Munich office with veteran partner Volker Kullmann moving to Sidley Austin along with fellow corporate partners Björn Holland, Christian Zuleger, Nicole Schlatter and Marcus Klie, as well as finance partner Markus Feil and tax partner Roderic Pagel.
The move mirrors Sidley’s hire at the same time last year when the firm landed a six-partner deal team from Kirkland’s London office.
Kirkland has made a number of recent high-profile hires, bringing in a string of partners from Linklaters. Corporate partners David Holdsworth and Stuart Boyd joined Kirkland last year, reuniting them with Linklaters’ former real estate M&A head Matthew Elliott, corporate partner Roger Johnson and ex- head of competition and antitrust Paula Riedel all of whom were announced as moving in 2015.
The US heavyweight also took on two from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer last year, hiring City finance partner Jonathan Birks and New York based corporate partner Doug Bacon.
Kirkland declined to comment.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk