Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised the Jones Lang LaSalle Group (“JLL”) on the sale of its property management business in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania to MVGM International B.V. (“MVGM”) and an alliance partnership between JLL and MVGM to serve client needs jointly.
JLL provides financial and professional services specialising in real estate. It offers comprehensive integrated services to owners, occupiers, investors and developers of real estate in more than 80 countries, including nine locations across Germany.
MVGM is a Netherlands-based real estate company focussed on providing specialist, comprehensive property management services. Over the past five years, MVGM has grown rapidly in line with its ambition to become Europe’s leading property management company.
The cross-border WFW team advising JLL was led by Frankfurt Corporate Partner and Office Head Dr Torsten Rosenboom working closely with Senior Associate Dr Jan Henrik Pesek. They were assisted in Frankfurt by a corporate team comprising Partner Dr Christoph Naumann, Managing Associate Dr Jan Winzen and Associates Janine Henger, Dr Marius Rothermund, Matthias Murr and Nicolas Persch. In Hamburg, Partners Dr Ahmad Khonsari, and Eckrolf Berg and Of Counsel Torge Rademacher provided corporate, real estate and data protection advice respectively. In Munich, Partner Dr Felix Siebler provided regulatory expertise, with Partner Dr Nikolaus Krienke, Senior Associate Christian Schnurrer and Associate Maximilian Koch advising on employment law matters. London Partner Jeremy Robinson and Senior Associate Richard O’Brien provided EU competition and corporate advice respectively. In Madrid, Corporate Partner Gonzalo Aranzabal and Associate Borja Gavilá and Banking & Finance Associate Jaime Salazar Arrancudiaga also assisted.
The WFW team worked closely throughout the transaction with local counsel from Orange Clover in the Netherlands, Argo Law in Belgium, Bonn & Schmitt in Luxembourg, PLMJ in Portugal and Schoenherr Rechtsanwälte in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Romania. Nicolas Taylor (Head of Legal & Compliance – EMEA), Antonios Kotsis (Head of Legal & Compliance – Germany) and Melanie Schwade (Senior Legal Counsel) led JLL’s in-house team on the transaction.
Torsten commented: “I’m delighted that JLL have opted for the second time for WFW to advise them on a highly strategic and complex M&A transaction, clear recognition of our ability to provide high-end cross-border multi-disciplinary advice across all service lines in our core sectors of expertise. I’m particularly proud that we were able to work and co-ordinate seamlessly across more than ten jurisdictions both with WFW colleagues and fellow counsel at other firms”.
