Top 25 US firm Goodwin Procter has added to its private equity bench in Germany with the hire of a partner from Shearman & Sterling. 

Winfried Carli joins the recently-launched Munich office having spent his entire professional career at Shearman, including 14 years as a partner. 

His is the latest in a string of PE hires for Goodwin in the UK and Germany that kicked off in September 2020 with the addition of a five-strong team in London from Sidley Austin. The firm also added a number of partners in Munich ahead of opening the office there in April, among them office chair Dr. Jan Schinköth, who joined the firm from Sidley Austin in May last year along with an associate. 

“Our expanding private equity client base in Germany requires sophisticated counsel to execute leveraged buyouts and [Carli] is proven to be one of the very best finance lawyers in the market,” said Schinköth, adding: “We are delighted he will be joining our fast-growing Munich office as we continue to disrupt the Germany private equity space.”

Carli’s practice focuses on domestic and cross border finance and restructuring matters, with a particular focus on leveraged finance. He represents national and international private equity firms, financial institutions, debt funds and companies on all types of debt transactions. Recent work included advising digital services group Allgaier Werke in its majority acquisition by China’s Westron Group earlier this month. 

Carli has joined the Munich office as its third PE partner after Schinköth and Florian Hirschmann, who joined the firm in January from Reed Smith. 

The office also houses real estate finance partner Anke Johann, who joined from an in-house role at Deutsche Pfandbriefbank last November and advises PE funds among other clients, and tax partner Oded Schein, who moved over from Kirkland & Ellis last June and provides tax-related advice in the context of cross-border PE transactions. 

The Munich office added to the Boston giant's existing German presence in Frankfurt, with the firm seeking to further bolster its market-leading M&A capabilities having ranked first for global M&A advisory mandates by deal count in 2021 and the first half of this year, according to Refinitiv data.