AI Issue 4 2017

54 Acquisition International - April 2017 FRANZlegal recently received two prestigious awards simultaneously, as winner of the Most Innovative Business Law Firm - Germany award and the Award for Excellence in M&A Law. We got in touch with FRANZlegal to find out more about this firm. RANZlegal is a firm of 20 attorneys based in Düsseldorf, Germany. Focusing on efficient, high-end legal advice, they advise foreign and domestic clients in all aspects of business. With twelve partners, the team’s focus is not leverage but dedication and experience. Building on their background in some of the most prestigious international law firms, FRANZlegal combines entrepreneurial spirit with a strong hands-on approach – while ensuring that clients benefit from the commitment and availability that a small team of dedicated professionals can offer. Innovation is paramount for succeeding in today’s globalized economy – for clients as well as for law firms. According to Christoph Neven, one of the firm’s partners, the innovation award honours both, the firm’s contribution to the success of its innovative clients as well as its innovative advisory concepts. As advisor to founders, (VC-) investors and start- ups, the firm’s attorneys are passionate about tech- related and high-growth businesses and supporting them in succeeding. Just recently, the firm advised Spanish venture capital fund Seaya in its investment in the social selling community PippaJean. FRANZlegal’s partner Antonio Calderón and his team advise founders on an ongoing basis – from the formation of a legal entity to the setting up and expansion of business operations – as well as the participation of investors up to the potential exit of the founder. However, at FRANZlegal innovation is not limited to the businesses advised by the firm, but also plays an important role in the firm itself and its approach of advising clients. For a law firm, innovation requires very close attention to the way that clients do business, now and in the future. Instead of offering piecemeal advice, FRANZlegal serves as one-stop-shop for the day-to-day business operations of corporates combining all relevant fields Company: FRANZ Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB Name: Patrick Vogt Email: [email protected] Web: www.franzlegal.com Address: Kaistraße 16A, D-40221 Düsseldorf, Germany Phone: +49 211 157676 250 A Strong Hands -On Approach F FD160102 of legal expertise, from trade and contracts, over antitrust law issues to IP. This day-to-day advice is mainly provided by FRANZlegal’s practice group commercial, which forms the second pillar of the firm’s business practice besides corporate and M&A. Not only large international clients appreciate this approach, but also medium and smaller businesses benefit from the efficiency and focus that it offers. In addition to excellence in legal advice, one of the keys to the firm’s success is its thorough understanding of how the client’s internal organizations work – and how legal input must look and feel to be beneficial within these organizations. This ‘inside understanding’ is ensured by the fact that FRANZlegal’s team also includes former in-house counsel. Commercial partner Karsten Korrat, who worked in the legal department of one of Germany’s leading pharma and chemicals blue chips for several years, is a good example for this. As businesses have an increasingly global reach, clients need legal counsel to understand as well as to be able to explain different settings, approaches and experiences in different jurisdictions. Based on their experience abroad, the team of FRANZlegal also offers outstanding expertise in this regard. With more than half of their business coming from non-German clients or involving non-German or multinational matters, all members of FRANZlegal’s team feel at home in international and national settings. “While our clients praise our support in their most complex M&A-deals, it feels good to get some outside feedback on our work, too”, describes Patrick Vogt, one of the firm’s M&A partners, AI’s M&A award to the firm. Led by five senior attorneys with longstanding experience in the industry, FRANZlegal advises domestic and foreign clients to get their M&A deal done. The firm prides itself in understanding the individual characteristics of each client and each transaction to find bespoke solutions and achieve optimum results instead of templates and boiler-plate. Key to this is a good sense of proportion. FRANZlegal focuses on small and mid-cap M&A transactions and has an outstanding track-record of international and cross-border deals. The firm’s strength lies in bespoke solutions that fit the specific requirements of the transaction combined with a deep sense of proportion of what the deal really needs. The fact that FRANZlegal’s M&A attorneys achieve optimum results for their clients is also a consequence of their industry-specific know-how, for example in pharma/life science, chemicals, automotive, coatings and furniture and many others. Clients appreciate the firm’s approach to fees that reflect the risks and opportunities of a transaction. A Strong Hands-On Approach