Arne Klüwer

Practice Areas

Dr. Arne Klüwer is a partner in the Frankfurt office and Head of Banking and Finance Germany as well as Head of Structured Finance Europe. He provides legal advice on a broad range of transactions from the structuring and implementation of a variety of structured finance transactions over workouts and complex restructurings to loan trading transactions.

Arne’s experience includes advising market participants in various roles and functions in the context of arranging and securitisation of loans (including CMBS), over the securitisation of trade and consumer receivables, inflation-indexed hereditary building rights and to the structuring and implementation of complex portfolio transactions, including advising various transaction parties on the sale, the acquisition and the financing of NPLs and other non-core assets to various restructurings and debt recovery advice (in and outside of insolvency proceedings). In this context, Arne has also advised on various bank rescue measures during and following the financial crisis of 2007/2008 covering total asset volumes well in excess of €50 billion.

Career

Dentons, 2017, Partner

Clifford Chance, 2000-2017, Partner since 2004

Personal

Constance, Heidelberg, Kiel (Doctorate 2001), Duke University (LL.M. 1997)

Experience

Lending (selection)

Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB): Advising Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) on the establishment of the EU Malaria Fund. The EU Malaria Fund combines resources of the European Union, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the IBB, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other public and private donors to fund research towards vaccines and other remedies against, inter alia, Malaria and other diseases, including COVID-19.

A pharmaceutical company: Advising an Israeli company as borrower under a loan obtained from EIB to fund research in various stages.

International bank and insurance company: Advising on a secured loan with a view to a whole business securitisation exit of a company in the business of leasing photovoltaic equipment to consumers in Germany (the first transaction of this type in Germany). Subsequent term out to a Dutch insurance investor.

Various lenders across Europe: Advising on numerous structured and secured lending transactions for lenders across Europe.

Loan Trading, Workouts and Restructuring (selection)

Various bidders on loan portfolio transactions: Acting on numerous non-performing loan and portfolio acquisitions, financings and exit transactions, including, inter alia, a German insurance company in its bid for a (performing) loan portfolio of €1.5 billion in 2015.

An international bank: Advising in the context of an ongoing complex insolvency of a borrower under an infrastructure loan including various litigation.

Deutsche Bank: Advising on the sale of an Italian NPL portfolio in 2015 to a specialized investor in the context of a competitive bid process.

GE Real Estate GmbH: Advising on the sale of a German real estate loans portfolio in excess of €1 billion to a private Irish investor.

Hypothekenbank Frankfurt AG/Commerzbank AG: Advising on project Octopus, the sale of a €4.4 billion loan portfolio of Spanish loans.

Portfolio Green: Advising the arranger on a €585 million true sale CMBS of 416 commercial mortgage loans secured on a portfolio of 205 commercial properties, including office, retail, residential, mixed-use, hotel and nursing home properties.

Bluebonnet: Advising on the first German NPL securitisation (€1.34 billion term note issuance by Bluebonnet Finance plc) and the preceding acquisition of the NPL portfolio and its financing.

Various lenders of CRE loans: Restructuring of numerous structured loans and loan portfolios backed by German real estate assets involving pre-insolvency and insolvency restructuring and resolution with a combined total volume exceeding €20 billion since 2007. In many instances this involved agreeing suitable and mutually acceptable terms with insolvency administrators and other creditors.

A UK credit institution as lender under CRE loans in Germany: Advising on real estate loan transfer and resolution measures. This included Project Pegasus, involving a transfer of 64 real estate holding companies with total assets in excess of €1.8 billion to a lender and the subsequent resolution of the portfolio and the unwinding of the structure

A UK credit institution as lender under a CRE loan: Advising on loan enforcement and corresponding litigation with a variety of parties for a large office building with an original loan value of €170 million.

Factoring banks and arrangers of ABS transactions: Advising on several restructurings of defaulted securitisation and factoring transactions for banks and creditors (latest such transaction was regarding a large insolvency in the shipping sector for a securitisation creditor).

Securitisation (selection)

Arrangers/placement agents: Advising international banks as main structuring and documentation counsel in the context of two securitisations with a 50 year term of inflation indexed hereditary building right cash flows in a total volume exceeding EUR 400 million. These two transactions were firsts in Germany and continental Europe in this type of structure and with such a long term and the first hereditary building right funding transactions structured in continental Europe since the financial crisis.

ABS conduit sponsors and factoring banks: Advising on numerous private trade receivables purchase and refinancing transactions through factoring and other discounted sale structures.

Numerous banks under their respective ABCP programmes: Advising on transactions involving, inter alia, lease receivables, healthcare receivables, auto loans and leases, ETC Certificates originated in Germany, UK, US, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and other European jurisdictions; several multiple conduit funding transactions including for BMW, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile.

Bank arrangers in Germany: Advising on the establishment of ABCP conduits for Helaba (Opusalpha) and HSH (Poseidon).

A German bank in Northern Germany: Advising on the establishment of a flexible trade receivables financing platform allowing the financing of true sale transactions to club-lenders and investors.

Several arrangers on a number of transactions: Advising on various CMBS transactions, pre and post-crisis, including, amongst others, Grand PLC (with €5.4 billion the largest CMBS transaction in Europe to date 2006), GRF 2013-1 Limited (€2.2 billion), one of the largest CMBS transactions concluded in Europe after the financial crisis.