Noerr leads M&A rankings again – large, complex transactions in forefront

The law firm Noerr has once again confirmed its strong position in M&A and leads the ranking for most frequently instructed advisors for mergers and acquisitions in Germany. This is confirmed by the annual evaluations of the financial information services providers Bloomberg, Mergermarket and Refinitiv. The firm is also one of the top transactions firms in Central and Eastern Europe once again.

“Our M&A teams were particularly active in the pandemic year, especially in large cross-border deals in unique and complex situations,” says Florian Becker, who leads Noerr’s Corporate/M&A practice group jointly with Alexander Hirsch. “ This involves not least our advising on the investor processes involved in the sale of the worldwide operations of Wirecard, the insolvent former DAX-listed group,” emphasised Alexander Hirsch.

For Bloomberg, Noerr took first place based on number of transactions. Noerr also rose to the top of the Mergermarket and Refinitiv Mid-Market rankings in Germany in second place. With its offices in Budapest, Bratislava, Bucharest, Prague and Warsaw, Noerr is also ranked by Mergermarket and Refnitiv as one of the top ten advisors in Central and Eastern Europe.

Noerr was named “Germany M&A Legal Adviser of the Year” by Mergermarket in its Europe M&A Awards 2020 due to the work of its transaction team.

The transactions on which Noerr provided advice in 2020 included:

• AURELIUS: Takeover of two divisions of the American conglomerate Woodward, Inc.
• Bauer Media: Acquisition of the Mediengruppe Mitteldeutsche Zeitung and sale of the Russian publishing business and the Polish Interia Group
• Ceconomy: Consensus with Convergenta on simplifying the company structure of MediaMarktSaturn
• Condor: Successful restructuring in the insolvency protection proceedings
• German Finance Agency/Economic Stabilisation Fund: Additional stabilisation package for TUI AG
• Panasonic: Sale of Vossloh-Schwabe to Fidelium Partners
• RIB Software SE: Public takeover bid by Schneider Electric
• Schwarz Gruppe: Acquisition of the waste disposal business of SUEZ in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Luxemburg
• Tengelmann/Kik: Restructuring of its KiK and TEDi holdings
• Volkswagen Financial Services: Participation of Volkswagen AG as new investor for heycar
• Wirecard: Sale of the worldwide operations of the insolvent Wirecard Group

With its practice group led by Florian Becker (Munich) and Alexander Hirsch (Düsseldorf), Noerr is one of the leading law firms in corporate/M&A. It focuses on providing advice on national and cross-border transactions, their financing, public takeovers, complex share and group structuring issues and the reorganisation and restructuring of companies.