Freshfields has advised UBS AG on the combination of most of its European wealth management business into UBS Europe SE, a European company headquartered in Frankfurt am Main

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (‘Freshfields’) has advised UBS AG on the combination of most of its European wealth management business into UBS Europe SE, a European company headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. UBS Europe SE was established through the cross-border merger of its Italian, Spanish, Luxembourg, Dutch and German wealth management activities. With the merger taking effect on 1 December 2016, UBS Deutschland AG as the absorbing entity was converted into an SE.

UBS Europe SE will be subject to the supervision of the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (‘BaFin’). Going forward, the operating business of the merged companies, which include the foreign branches of UBS (Luxembourg) S.A. in Denmark, Austria and Sweden, will be continued through branches of UBS Europe SE.

The multijurisdictional Freshfields team was led by corporate partners Thomas Bücker and Gunnar Schuster, who were supported by employment, pensions and benefits partners Thomas Müller-Bonanni and Raquel Flórez, tax partner Jan Brinkmann, corporate partners Dirk-Jan Smit, David Franco, Javier Monzon, Nicola Asti, Raffaele Lener and Farid Sigari-Majd, and finance partner Florian Klimscha.

Lead in-house advisers at UBS in Zurich were Saumya Bhavsar and Antonio La Verghetta. In-house advisers at UBS Deutschland AG in Frankfurt included Michael Fischer, Uwe Trafkowski and Holger Hirschberg.