MUNICH, March 3, 2023: Building on the firm’s longstanding presence in Frankfurt, Morgan Lewis is establishing a Munich office with 19 lawyers and advisors from the Munich office of Shearman & Sterling. Three partners—Florian Harder, head of Shearman & Sterling’s German offices and M&A/PE partner; Florian Ziegler, leveraged finance partner; and Jann Jetter, leader of the tax advisory practice—will launch Morgan Lewis’s new Munich office with a leading transactional and regulatory team in the areas of M&A, private equity, finance, and tax. Florian Harder will become Managing Partner of the Munich office.
“Germany is one of the most significant legal markets in Europe, and its importance is only growing,” said Firm Chair Jami McKeon. “We have diligently eyed this market for some time to find the right high-caliber team that builds on our existing practice while adding to our strong culture of collaboration. We anticipate that the entire office, including the business professional team, will join us—enabling our new Munich office to operate at full speed on day one. Having two offices in Germany expands our broad global corporate practice and will further position us as an elite legal service provider and strategic partner for our clients in Germany and around the world. The opening of a Munich office is strategically aligned with our global client base, as the city is home to many multinational companies, such as Amazon, Google, Siemens, Linde, Allianz, Audi, BMW, MunichRE, and Microsoft and is the seat of significant financial sponsors such as private equity funds and family offices.”
Deeply entrenched in the German market for over 34 years, Morgan Lewis has more than 20 lawyers in Frankfurt who work closely with colleagues around the world to advise German and global clients—ranging from large multinational companies and financial institutions to medium-sized companies and startups—in the full spectrum of industries, with particular strength in the manufacturing, energy, technology, life sciences, financial services, and automotive sectors. The team advises on complex cross-border transactions and financings, private equity, tax, UK and EU antitrust matters, banking, labor and employment, and dispute resolution, among other areas. With a presence in major financial and business centers, including London, Brussels, and Paris, Morgan Lewis’s European team assists some of the world’s best-recognized companies with their most complex matters across the European Union and globally.
“Munich is a dynamic hub with strategic importance to several industry sectors including private equity, infrastructure, energy, life sciences, and technology, and presents strong opportunities with intellectual property given that Munich is where the European Patent Office is headquartered,” said Steven Wall, Firm Managing Partner. “Operating at the heart of the market, our new Munich team’s corporate, private equity, finance, and tax experience across a range of sectors and their outstanding skillsets will pair well with our existing private equity practice and industry strengths in Frankfurt and globally, and will provide opportunities for both German offices to attract and service complex inbound and outbound cross-border transactions.”
Florian Harder represents private equity firms, strategic investors and international corporates on complex M&A transactions in both German and cross-borders deals. He also has extensive experience with respect to venture capital transactions, joint ventures, corporate restructurings and in representing management and supervisory boards on all aspects of corporate law.
Florian Ziegler, who will reside in both of Morgan Lewis’s Munich and Frankfurt offices, focuses on German-based and cross-border leveraged finance transactions, including acquisition financing and corporate loans, the issuance of high yield notes and structured finance products. Florian’s practice focuses on representing traditional non-US banks and non-bank direct lenders, as well as private equity funds as borrowers in acquisition finance. Clients also benefit from his broad range of experience with complex restructurings. In addition, Florian is a civil notary.
Jann Jetter leads a team of tax lawyers and tax advisers focused on tax-oriented structuring of private equity funds and private equity transactions, and post-deal reorganizations and integrations. He also develops management participation programs for strategic corporates and advises with regard to ongoing group tax law matters, in particular in relation to binding rulings, tax audits and appeal proceedings.