Eisenberger & Herzog, in cooperation with the London office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, has advised a group of creditors of Steinhoff Holdings’ subsidiary Hemisphere Properties on its sale of Kika/Leiner property assets in Austria and several other CEE countries to the Signa Group. Steinhoff was counseled by Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner and Gleiss Lutz, and Hemisphere was advised by Clifford Chance and Wolf Theiss. The Signa Group was advised by Arnold, while Kika/Leiner was represented by Schoenherr, Urbanek Lind Schmied Reisch, and Preslmayr.
Eisenberger & Herzog Partner Michael Strenitz commented: “The deal’s greatest challenge was the impending bankruptcy of the operational Kika/Leiner companies and with that, the loss of more than 5,000 jobs if the negotiations had failed. Our task was to safeguard the legitimate interests of the creditors, despite the enormous time pressure.”
Steinhoff which has more than 12,000 locations in 30 countries and some 112,000 employees worldwide, is among the largest global furniture groups. According to FWP, "from the perspective of the Austrian holding companies alone, the total amount of liabilities concerned is EUR 7.5 billion.”
The Eisenberger & Herzog team included Partners Michael Strenitz and Clemens Lanschutzer, Senior Associate Laurenz Liedermann, and Associates Wolfgang Kiegerl, Krzysztof Nowak, Helena Neuner, and Karoline Hofmann.
FWP's core team included Partners Markus Fellner, Paul Luiki, and Florian Kranebitter, Junior Partners Elisabeth Fischer-Schwarz and Benedikt Kessler, and Associates Philipp Bunzl, Pia-Alena Havel, Armin Sommerauer, and Julian Zarre.
Wolf Theiss’ team included Partners Peter Oberlechner, Eva Spiegel, Markus Bruckmuller, Christian Mikosch, Janos Toth, Luka Tadic-Colic, Jan Kotous, Claus Schneider, Matthias Schimka, Katarina Bielikova, and Associates Jiayan Zhu, David Gschaider, Lukas Pinegger, David Simek, Peter Ihasz, Ivana Hovancova, Iris Riepan, Jakob Jelinek, Natasha Johannik, Stefan Horn, and Lucia Mocibob.
The Arnold team included Partners Nikolaus Arnold and Florian Arnold and Attorneys Andreas Eder, Verena Stagl, Thomas Raubal, and Roman Gruber.
Schonherr’s team included Partner Wolfgang Holler, Managing Partner Miriam Simsa, and Associate Philipp Kalser.
The Urbanek Lind Schmied Reisch team was led by Ulla Reisch.
Preslmayr’s team included Partners Matthias Schmidt and Christian Podoschek.
