Niederer Kraft & Frey

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Banking and finance

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Mergers and acquisitions

Restructuring and insolvency

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Niederer Kraft & Frey

Established in 1936, Niederer Kraft & Frey is seemingly entrenched in the legal landscape of Switzerland. There is no doubt as to this firm's capability in producing quality output.... [more]

Established in 1936, Niederer Kraft & Frey is seemingly entrenched in the legal landscape of Switzerland. There is no doubt as to this firm's capability in producing quality output.

The firm is held in high regard by many in the market particularly in the financing space. "They are pretty active. They've been involved in refinancings this year. Their financing is robust and strong," one peer says, with another adding: "They've been more active." However some felt that the firm's visibility had slightly decreased in recent times. "We don't see them as we used to five years ago. They're not in the same league. They're not in the first tier but they're still strong in financial [matters]," one partner says. However, such an observation can only be relative to the high standards the firm has set.

The team's banking and finance arm has been buoyed by the internal promotions of Marco Häusermann and Nicolas Birkhäuser to the partnership. Niederer Kraft & Frey is known for its competence in the capital markets and its highlights this year reinforce this perception. In the context of CVC Capital Partners' SFr3.3 billion (€2.9 billion) acquisition of Sunrise Communications from TDC, the firm acted as sole Swiss counsel to Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. To this end, the firm assisted in the acquisition financing which involved a SFr1.6 billion high-yield notes financing, by far the largest Swiss high-yield issue ever, and secured syndicated credit facilities worth SFr820 million.

The M&A team at the firm backed up its tier one placing last year as it was involved in the largest, cross-border takeover (to date) in Switzerland in 2011 by way of a tender offer. It advised Schulthess Group on all Swiss law matters relating to a transaction which saw NIBE group announce its friendly SFr638 million public tender offer for the SIX-listed Schulthess Group. However, despite this impressive mandate there are still some in the market who see the firm's true focus as capital markets as opposed to M&A. "They do capital markets related things. For pure M&A they're not in the first tier," one partner says.

As part of the second largest insolvency case in Swiss history, at SFr900 million the firm is acting as legal advisor to the liquidator in the ISMM AG/ISL Worldwide insolvency. This case is a unique and challenging affair as legal doctrine is silent on many matters and several legal issues are untested in the case law.

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Leading lawyers
François Bianchi
Peter Isler
Urs Pulver
Philippe Weber

Bahnhofstrasse 13
8001 Zurich
Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 800 8000
Fax: +41 58 800 8080
Email: nkf@nkf.ch
Web: www.nkf.ch

Number of partners: 27
Number of other fee earners: 66

Partners:
Prof. Dr. Peter Forstmoser, LL.M., Dr. Peter R. Isler, LL.M., Dr. Ernst Felix Schmid, LL.M., Dr. François M. Bianchi, LL.M., Dr. Peter C. Honegger, LL.M., Dr. Gaudenz G. Zindel, LL.M., Dr. Markus A. Frey, LL.M., Dr. Urs Pulver, Dr. Edgar H. Paltzer, LL.M., Dr. Thomas Graf, Dr. Dr. Thomas Sprecher, LL.M., Dr. Thomas A. Frick, LL.M., Dr. András Gurovits, MBA, Dr. Andreas Casutt, LL.M., Dr. Philippe Weber, LL.M., Lic. Daniela Schmucki, Prof. Dr. Isabelle Romy, Lic. Philipp Haas, LL.M., Lic. Daniel Eisele, LL.M, Dr. Christoph Balsiger, Lic. Markus E. Kronauer, Dr. Ulysses von Salis, LL.M., PD Dr. Sandro Abegglen, LL.M., Dr. Adrian W. Kammerer, M.M., Lic. Andreas F. Vögeli, Lic. Nicolas Birkhäuser, LL.M., Lic. Marco Häusermann, LL.M.

Of-counsels:
Dr. Stefan Kraft, LL.M., Prof. Dr. René Rhinow, Dr. Hans Niederer, LL.M., Prof. Dr. Rolf Sethe, LL.M.

Associates:
Dr. Ulrich Benz, Lic. Debra E. Davatz Hörler, Lic. Michaela Zehnder, Lic. Edith Kreis-Kolb, Lic. Catherine Grun Meyer, LL.M., Lic. Thomas Brönnimann, LL.M., Lic. Manuel Werder, LL.M., Lic. Angela Petzold Theiler, LL.M., Dr. Valerie Meyer Bahar, LL.M., Dr. Philipp Candreia, LL.M., Lic. Andrea Nordin, Lic. Andrea Huber, LL.M, Lic. Patrick Schmutz, LL.M., Lic. Sanna Maas Thurnherr, Lic. Brigitte Knecht, LL.M., Dr. Patrik R. Peyer, LL.M., EMBA, Dr. Petra Ginter, Lic. Hansjürg Christoffel, Lic. Allegra Sosso, LL.M., Lic. Gian-Andrea Caprez, LL.M., Lic. Dominic Studer, Dr. Thomas Jutzi, LL.M., Dr. Bertrand Schott, Lic. Arie Gerszt, LL.M., Mario Erni, MLaw, Lic. Judith Weber, Lic. Oliver Groenewold, Lic. Christoph Baumann, Lic. Tamir Livschitz, LL.M., Lic. Tanja Bottiglione, LL.M., Dr. Christoph Nater, Lic. Daniel Bono, LL.M., Lic. Alexandre Both, Lic. Christoph Küng, Lic. René Fischer, Lic. Danièle Müller, Dr. Ruth Rosenkranz, Lic. Cinzia Catelli, Arnaud F. Philippe, MLaw, Lic. Evelyn Schilter, LL.M., Dr. Andreas W. Weiss, Dipl.-Jur. Caroline Schwarzer, LL.M., Lic. Mirjam Vögeli, Dr. Christa Sommer, Lic. et M.Sc. Marcel Hadorn, Lic. Daniel Sykora, Lic. Laurence Uttinger, Lic. Johanna Mösch, Lic. Mirjam Holdener De Simone, Aylin Erb, MLaw, Lic.

Junior Associates:
Christine Dobler, Rafael Dössegger, Olivia Furter, Christian Lütolf, Silja Meyer, Cynthia Oggenfuss, Geneviève Radu, Anna-Barbara Schärer, Elena Victoria Rodriguez, Adrian Willyanto, Tadas Zukas.

Firm profile:

Established 1936, Niederer Kraft & Frey is a preeminent Swiss law firm with a proven track record of legal excellence and innovation.
Throughout our history, we have continuously worked on the most important and demanding cases entrusted to Swiss law firms. This is the foundation of our distinct market knowledge, expertise and experience as well as our capacity for innovative thought.

We work and think internationally. As a market leader in Switzerland, we have built long-standing relationships with the world's best international law firms. The majority of our lawyers have undertaken further training at American, British or other foreign universities and many of us have gained professional experience in partner law firms abroad.

Thanks to our heritage and market position we offer innovative and sustainable services, and avoid being influenced by short-term trends.

We attach great importance to combining a highly professional approach and persistence in pursuing our clients' goals with being easy to work with, even in the most demanding situations.

Areas of practice:

As a full-service-firm with around one hundred first-class lawyers we cover the entire spectrum of business law. Our goal is to be the firm of choice for clients for their most challenging legal issues, most significant business transactions and most critical disputes.

We value highly professional breadth and depth. Intellectually-flexible generalists with specialist knowledge in various fields help our clients maintain an overview and overcome problems in a holistic manner.

Languages spoken:

German, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Hebrew, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish.

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