Hans-Jörg Ziegenhain

Practice Areas

Hansi Ziegenhain has specialised in advising listed companies, family businesses and private equity clients on corporate and M&A matters.

His M&A projects in recent years for listed companies include: sale of Innomotics (Siemens) to KPS Capital Partners (2024), the acquisition of Alstom's US signaling business by Knorr-Bremse (2024), sale of the Yunex Traffic (Siemens) to Atlantia S.p.A. (2022), the sale of a 50% stake in Valeo Siemens eAutomotive Group to Valeo (2022), the acquisition of NileDutch B.V. by Hapag-Lloyd AG (2021), the acquisition of ISS Inc. by Deutsche Börse AG (2020), the sale of the Flender group by Siemens to Carlyle (2020), the acquisition of Axioma Inc. by Deutsche Börse AG and General Atlantic (2019), the sale of the Graphite Electrode Business of SGL Carbon to Showa Denko, Tokyo (2016), the sale of trans‑o‑flex Group by Österreichische Post AG (2016), the disposition of the Audiology Group from Siemens to EQT (2014), the sale of Siemens' 50% stake in Bosch-Siemens Hausgeräte (BSH) to Bosch (2014).

In advising family businesses, Hansi most recently advised the founder of ATOSS Software AG in the sale of a 25% stake in ATOSS to General Atlantic (2023), the Morellato family in the acquisition of CHRIST (2022), the family shareholders of Renolit SE and RKW SE in connection with the demerger of the group amongst their shareholders (2019), the Hymer family in connection with the sale of Erwin Hymer Group to Thor Industries (2018), Stahlgruber Otto Gruber AG in connection with the sale of Stahlgruber GmbH to LKQ (2017), EQT in connection with the acquisition of a 20% stake in Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH (2017), the Schön family in connection with Carlyle's acquisition of a minority stake in Schön Kliniken Group (2016), Heinz Hermann Thiele in connection with the public takeover of Vossloh (2015), on the Knorr-Bremse IPO (2018).

Apart from the advice of strategic corporate and family businesses, Hansi also advises private equity investors. Private equity transactions in which he has assisted include: the sale of EQT's minority stake in Ottobock to Hans Georg Näder (2024), the sale of ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH by Amira to HENSOLDT (2023), the acquisition of a 20% stake in Sartorius AG by an Armira led consortium (2022), the acquisition by EQT of a minority stake in SHL Medical group (2020), the sale of a minority stake in the Wittur Group to PSP Investments (2019), the sale of CBR Group by EQT to Alteri Investors (2018), the sale of SAG Group by EQT to SPIE S.A. (2016), the sale of FTE Automotive Group by Bain Capital to Valeo (2016), the sale of Armacell by Charterhouse to Blackstone (2015), the sale of Douglas by Advent International to CVC Capital Partners (2015), the sale of Flint Group by CVC Capital Partners to Goldman Sachs and Koch Industries (2014), the acquisition of Erdgas­versorgungs­gesellschaft Thüringen-Sachsen by First State Investments from E.ON (2014), the acquisition of ista Deutschland GmbH from Charterhouse by CVC Capital Partners (2013), the sale of ista group from CVC Capital Partners to CK Infrastructure (CKI) (2017).

Since 2007, Hansi has held a teaching position for "Mergers and Acquisitions" at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, and in 2014, he was awarded an honorary professorship by LMU. Hansi is a member of the International Bar Association (Corporate and M&A Law Committee). In addition, he gives lectures on Mergers and Acquisitions and Private Equity in Germany and abroad and also gives guest lectures at the University of Michigan.

Hansi is regularly named as one of the leading M&A lawyers in Germany and "is widely considered one of Germany's top experts in the private equity space" (Chambers 2023). Clients consider him "one of the 3 best M&A partners in Germany"(JUVE 2023/2024, translated) and "very strong and multi-talented across different types of M&A" (Chambers 2023), while Who's Who Legal lists him, inter alia, in their list of Global Elite Thoughts Leaders for M&A (2023). Since 2011, Chambers has ranked him in the First Tier of leading German lawyers each for Corporate/M&A (High End Capability) and Private Equity, while JUVE has ranked him as a Leading Lawyer for the same two practice areas since 2013; Legal 500 nominated him as the Private Equity and Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year (2024), WirtschaftsWoche ranked him as the Legal Star M&A Lawyer No. 1 (2024) and Handelsblatt Best Lawyer of the Year for Private Equity (2024).