fwp advised Steinhoff Group on the sale of Kika/Leiner to SIGNA Group.

The fwp team headed by Markus Fellner advised Steinhoff Group on the sale of Kika/Leiner. With some 5,500 employees and more than 70 locations in Austria and Eastern Europe, Kika/Leiner has been part of Steinhoff Group since 2013.

“The sale marks a highlight in the months of fwp providing restructuring advice to Steinhoff Group ever since the company was hit hard by an accounting scandal. This transaction is a major contribution towards stabilising Kika/Leiner Group and thus towards safeguarding thousands of jobs”, commented Markus Fellner.

Given its international dimension, the complexity of the structures and the large number of stakeholders involved, along with the requirement to come to a closing as quickly as possible, this transaction is unprecedented in Austria. It provided fwp with an opportunity to fully leverage its leading position in distressed M&As and to draw on its long-standing expertise in real estate and retail.

The fwp core team consisted of fwp partners Markus Fellner (Restructuring & M&A/lead), Florian Kranebitter (Restructuring /Finance), Paul Luiki (Corporate), Lukas Flener (Merger Control), fwp junior partner Elisabeth Fischer-Schwarz (Insolvency) and associate Julian Zarre (Corporate).

Other legal counsel: for SIGNA (Nikolaus Arnold, Arnold Rechtsanwälte), for Kika/Leiner (Ursula Reisch, Urbanek Lind Schmied Reisch) and for one of the real estate companies (Peter Oberlechner, Wolf Theiss).