WFW advises econnext on agreement with Circular Carbon7 January 2020

Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised econnext GmbH (“econnext”) on an agreement with Circular Carbon GmbH (“Circular Carbon”). Following the transaction, econnext will hold a 50.1% stake in Circular Carbon.

The agreement was subject to the successful conclusion of an Energy Purchase Agreement between Circular Carbon and a major partner in the food industry, on which WFW also advised.

Circular Carbon is an emerging company in the vegetable carbon sector, specialising in identifying and operating decarbonisation projects to replace fossil fuels in industrial processes with biomass. It also develops and distributes high-quality vegetable carbon products.

econnext helps start up, sponsor and promote companies developing and scaling profitable solutions to ensure the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are met, such as energy supply and efficiency and education (tutoring). Key shareholders include Dr Brigitte Mohn, Stephen Brenninkmeijer and Dr Nathalie von Siemens.

The WFW Germany team advising econnext was led by Frankfurt Corporate Partners Dr Torsten Rosenboom and Dr Christoph Naumann, working closely with Hamburg Employment Partner Dr Andreas Wiegreffe. They were supported by Of Counsel Torge Rademacher (IP) and Associates Dr Robert Schalber and Dr Marius Rothermund (both Corporate).

Torsten comments: “We are very pleased that econnext opted for WFW to advise them for the second time in 2019 – following the successful acquisition of a stake in FLAXTEC – on a transaction in the renewable energy sector. This once again highlights the excellent reputation of our M&A practice in that sector in Germany and beyond”.

econnext Co-Managing Director Dr Jobst von Hoyningen-Huene adds: “Working with WFW was, once again, an excellent experience. Their combination of M&A and energy expertise was important to the successful conclusion of this transaction”.