Sidley Austin is significantly strengthening its private equity, corporate and restructuring practices with the addition of eight partners to its Munich office.
The new group comprises seven partners from Kirkland & Ellis, headed by leading private equity and M&A lawyer Volker Kullmann, and Kolja von Bismarck, head of the German Banking and Financial Restructuring group at Linklaters. Joining Kullmann in the move from Kirkland are tax partner Roderic Pagel, corporate partners Björn Holland, Christian Zuleger, Marcus Klie and Nicole Schlatter, and finance/capital markets partner Markus Feil, a close-knit team who have worked together for many years.
The eight new Munich partners will join corporate partner Jan Schinköth, who himself joined Sidley's Munich office last month, and Erik Dahl, who opened Sidley's Munich office last year, coming with his team of five other private equity-focused partners based in London. With these new partners, Sidley will have been joined by 21 new private equity-focused corporate, finance, restructuring and tax partners in London and Munich, with nearly all of them having worked closely together prior to joining Sidley.
“The addition of these outstanding partners to our Munich office is another key step forward on Sidley’s road toward first-tier global leadership in acting for managers and holders of private capital,“ says George Petrow, Sidley’s managing partner for the European region. “Contrary to growing skepticism in some quarters about the future of globalised markets, we remain convinced that the ability to offer cross-border legal services will continue to offer outstanding growth opportunities to the firms capable of exploiting them, and nowhere more so than in private equity, restructuring and M&A.“
“The Munich team build-up is an important milestone for our firm because in any viable global growth strategy, Germany is bound to play a crucial role,” says Erik Dahl, global co-leader of Sidley’s Private Equity practice. “Home to the largest economy in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, Germany, with Munich as one of its most dynamic hubs, still offers significant potential for private equity and restructuring relative to other key regions, especially at a cross-border level. We have spent a lot of time in putting together a group of market leaders in Germany who combine a wealth of transaction experience with legal excellence and commercial judgment, and who share our vision of a multidisciplinary European team working cohesively on a global scale.”
“Like all my colleagues now joining Sidley’s Munich office, I am delighted by the outstanding prospects of this move” says Volker Kullmann. “What has impressed me most about Sidley is its willingness to move forward as a truly global firm, its strive for excellence and its team culture. I have no doubt that Sidley’s global success story will continue to unfold, and I look forward to being a part of it.”
