Press release

Babcock & Brown in-house team in Munich goes into business for itself as fks Feuerstein Kirfel Spieth.

Close cooperation with "best friend"- law firm HEUSSEN

Munich, 25 June 2009 – Former Babcock & Brown in-house lawyers Andreas Feuer-stein, Oliver Kirfel and Dr. Bernd Spieth open their own transactions law firm in Mu-nich on 1 July 2009 under the name of fks Feurstein Kirfel Spieth.

Fks will cooperate with HEUSSEN Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH on the basis of a best-friend concept. Both Law firms will work together in professional matters as well as on a personnel basis and will jointly give advice on transactions.

The three partners were formerly working as in-house counsels for Babcock & Brown GmbH, Munich. Feuerstein and Spieth have known each other since their long-term employment at Clifford Chance. Feuerstein (37) was part of the Banking & Capital Markets team of Clifford Chance and worked subsequently as in-house counsel for EADS. 39-year-old Bernd Spiel, who is also a tax counselor, worked as counsel in the Tax/ M&A team of Clifford Chance. Prior to his employment at Babcock & Brown, Oliver Kirfel (34) worked for CMS Hasche Sigle in the area of Corporate/ M&A.

At Babcock & Brown, an Australian private investment firm the three lawyers oversaw multiple transactions in the areas of real estate, renewable energies and infrastruc-ture and continually supported the asset management inter alia in restructuring is-sues.

Due to the financial crisis, the Babcock & Brown group is forced to liquidate its worldwide assets over the next years. During this time the associated companies of Babcock & Brown need continuous legal advice, specifically for various transactions. In Germany fks will be in charge of coordinating these transactions and will cooper-ate closely with HEUSSEN in order to be able to offer comprehensive legal advice, depending on the respective requirements of a transaction.

For HEUSSEN this cooperation is another step towards its growth target, which has been pursued quite successfully through the recent recruitment of Reinhold Kopp, former Minister of Economic Affairs of the Saarland and former chief representative of the Volkswagen AG as well as the opening of further representative offices in Brussels and New York.

The cooperation with fks emphasizes HEUSSEN’s strategic alignment to further strengthen its personnel capacity with experienced and top-class colleagues in all locations. “We are glad to have found three perfect partners for HEUSSEN“ says HEUSSEN’s business manager Dr. Christof Schmidt.
For us“ explains fks partner Dr. Bernd Spieth „this is a big step and everything has gone very well so far. One the one hand we are independent and can work on our own mandates, especially for Babcock & Brown and on the other hand, we can resort to a network of highly qualified colleagues.”