2020 Cross-Border M&A and Private Equity Investment Virtual Conference

Conference Co-Chair
Partner and Lawyer, McDermott Will & Emery, Munich

Dr. Nikolaus von Jacobs advises private equity funds and German industrial players on private equity, venture capital, and private and public mergers and acquisitions. Nikolaus leads the Firm’s German private equity activities.

Conference Co-Chair
Partner and Lawyer, McDermott Will & Emery, Munich

Christian von Sydow advises clients on corporate law, M&A, private equity, restructuring, corporate conflict resolution and estate planning. He has represented a large number of international and German clients, including strategic and financial investors, in acquisitions and sales of businesses in Germany and internationally in cross-border matters. Mr. von Sydow represents clients in a wide variety of industries, including automotive supply, consumer electronics, defence, energy, internet, optics, publishing, retail, software, technology and testing technology, travel and tourism.

Partner and Lawyer, McDermott Will & Emery
Moderator

Partner, capiton AG

Fritjof Franz is Partner at capiton AG. Before joining capiton in 2018, he worked for several years as Head of Global M&A and Licensing for the listed Paul Hartmann Group, as well as several years for a private equity investor, a management consultancy and as a lawyer in the field of M&A and restructuring. Mr Franz is a certified lawyer and completed an LL.M. in M&A at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and an international MBA at IE Business School in Madrid.

Partner, Charterhouse Capital Partners

Carsten joined Charterhouse in 2018 as a Partner, focussing on new deal origination across the German speaking countries as well as Benelux. He previously spent 13 years in Investcorp’s European private equity team, where he completed several transactions across the Industrial,Business Services and Consumer sectors. Prior to this, he worked in the Leveraged Finance team of J.P. Morgan in London. Carsten has a Diplom-Kaufmann from the EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht and an MBA from the Katz Graduate School of Business, Pittsburgh.

Prior to joining HWF, Philipp spent several years as an attorney with leading international law firms in Germany and the United States and advised German and international clients on all aspects of corporate law, takeover law, and in connection with M&A transactions, in particular with respect to national and cross-border transactions. Additionally, Philipp has been active working on private equity and venture capital transactions over the previous years.

Since moving into the M&A insurance sector Philipp has advised numerous clients and their advisors on a broad range of transactions, with deal values ranging into the several billions.

Managing Partner, VTC Industriebeteiligungen

Richard G. Ramsauer has completed a number of transactions in the industrials, infrastructure and electronics space. He manages VTC’s interests in FRIWO AG. Mr. Ramsauer is also in charge of public relations at VTC. Before joining VTC, he worked for Bain & Company as a project manager in the Munich and Stockholm offices. During his time at Bain, he focused on strategy work and efficiency programs in the industrials and commodities sectors. He also spends some time on his forestry estate in Austria. Mr. Ramsauer is an Austrian citizen and holds a business degree from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and an MBA from the University of Chicago, United States.

Member of the Executive Board, Head of M&A, Helbling Business Advisors

Andre has almost twenty years of experience as a strategy, M&A and corporate finance expert and as a strategy consultant for clients in the financial services and capital markets sectors. He has held various management positions at Accenture, Commerzbank and KGAL. Before joining Helbling Business Advisors and CFI Group, Andre was Partner at Clairfield International with a focus on the transaction market of startups, corporates and VCs in the fintech sector and other digital business models. He covers further technology-based innovation areas such as mobility and energy. At the investment management house KGAL, he was responsible for the development of innovative business areas, the M&A and venture capital investments and he implemented a digital investment platform. Besides this, he supports academia in the development of blockchain technology. His experience and network ranges from corporates and midcap companies to private equity, venture capital, and entrepreneurs. Andre graduated from business studies at Oxford University and in Ravensburg. He holds an MBA from Saïd Business School.

Senior Director, Management Board Germany, AlixPartners

Moderator

Philip works with clients on critical corporate transformations and transactions, strategic development, and governance and compliance by applying his experience as a consultant, interim manager, and lawyer. In the current distressed environment, he focuses on supporting clients on crisis management, radical restructuring and cash-focused performance improvement measures, and resilience enhancements. His practice spans across major corporates, in particular in the technology and automotive sectors, as well as financial services and PE investments. Previously, he worked with leading consulting, PE and corporate law firms, including McKinsey, BCG, Gleiss Lutz, and Apax Partners. Philip holds a PhD in corporate and commercial law from the Ludwig Maximilians University and the Max Plank Institute in Munich. He equally holds master's-degree equivalents in business management (Diplom-Kfm.) and French law (Maítrise - Paris 2/Assas).

Partner, PwC, M&A

Timo has more than 15 years of M&A experience and has specialized in stressed and distressed M&A as well as dual track transactions (M&A and refinancing). He provides both sell-side and buy-side advice and has successfully concluded more than 60 transactions to date.

Prior to joining PwC in 2019, Timo was a Partner with KPMG. He led the distressed M&A and insolvency practice of KPMG Germany. 

Timo is a graduate of the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, London University and University of Applied Sciences Worms. He holds a diploma in Economics and a diploma in Business Administration. 

Certified Public Accountant, Certified Tax Advisor, Managing Partner,
SGP Schneider Geiwitz & Partner

Arndt Geiwitz is managing partner of the SGP Schneider Geiwitz group of corporate law firms. He graduated from the University of Passau and holds a degree in economics. As Certified Public Accountant and Certified Tax Advisor he has spent more than 20 years as an auditor and tax consultant in the field of corporate restructuring. His main areas of expertise as an advisor of medium-sized enterprises are risk management, strategy, business succession, and M&A. He supports many out-of-court restructurings and advises companies in major insolvency proceedings as general representative. Since 2000 he has been appointed by courts as insolvency administrator and since 2012 as trustee.

Managing Partner, AEQUITA

Dr.-Ing. Axel Geuer is Co-Founder and Managing Parner of AEQUITA, a Munich-based privately owned industrial group, investing in small-medium sized companies headquartered in Europe. Prior to this, Axel spent 10 years acting as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Mutares SE & Co. KGaA, a German-based holding company that acquires medium-sized companies in turnaround situations. Axel has also worked as CEO at packaging equipment manufacturer Hamba Filtec and Principal at the strategy consulting firm Bain & Company for 4 and 8 years respectively.

Partner, PwC Deutschland

Tobias is a Partner in PwC‘s Advisory Deals unit in Munich with more than 14 years of professional experience. Tobias is a specialist in realizing the full transaction value in both international and multidisciplinary carve-out, value creation and integration projects for corporate and private equity clients (buy/sell-side).

Prior to PwC he worked for another "Big Four", a M&A boutique and a Corporate in Business Development/M&A.

He is a graduate of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. He holds a LL.M. in Mergers & Acquisitions and a Diploma in Business Administration. 

Head of Germany, Managing Director, Acquinex

Michael is Managing Director of Acquinex Germany, a specialist provider for W&I insurance for the Mittelstand. In his underwriting function, Michael has provided transactional risk solutions for more than 100 deals of any size and industry. Most recently, he was a senior M&A underwriter at AIG in Frankfurt with a focus on complex cross-border transactions. Michael graduated from University Bayreuth with a law degree and was admitted to bar asattorney in law (Rechtsanwalt) in 2011. Prior to joining Acquinex, he spent several years in international law firms in Munich (Taylor Wessing and Norton Rose Fulbright) focusing on Private Equity, M&A and corporate matters.

Partner, Head of Germany, GIMV Germany

Dr. Sven Oleownik joined Gimv, a public listed European private equity and venture capital company, in 2015. Before that, Dr. Oleownik headed Deloitte’s Corporate Finance Advisory Team as a managing partner for 12 years. His clients at Deloitte included large corporations (e.g., BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, Siemens and Volkswagen), private equity firms (e.g., Apax, Carlyle, Emeram, EQT, Hannover Finanz, Riverside) and medium-sized companies (e.g., Bionade, Jochen Schweizer, Frequentis, MEN and Runnerspoint). He has key expertise in the consumer/retail and technology sectors. Prior to working for Deloitte, Dr. Oleownik was a partner at a leading management consulting firm and at a medium-sized investment company. In the course of his professional career, he has guided more than 100 transactions, among them several IPOs, and served as a member of the board for various companies. Dr. Oleownik represents Gimv on the board of Think-step and Wemas.

Head of DACH and CEE, Datasite Germany GmbH

Markus Schiller is Head of DACH und CEE at Datasite Germany GmbH.

He has supported the transformation to Datasite over the past four years and has led the Frankfurt office since 2017. Prior to his time at Datasite, Markus worked in the financial sector, as Sales Manager Europe for Trading Technologies and account manager at Thomson Reuters. In 2016, he co-founded the technology start-up Evo Fintech. He holds an MBA from Purdue University (US) and a BA from the University of Oregon (US).