

Alternative Investments
Today, alternative investments have become an integral part of institutional investor portfolios. In the current low-interest environment, there is high demand for illiquid assets such as real estate, private equity, private debt, loan portfolios, energy and infrastructure investments, ships and aircraft.
We provide comprehensive advice in this field from initial structural plans right up to exit. Our Alternative Investments Group pools all the necessary expertise and supports you in your investments on a global scale, be it foreign investments in German assets or supporting German investors in other countries.
Our scope of advice includes in particular:
- asset expertise and market intelligence in all fields
- advice on regulatory, tax and corporate law aspects (on the investment itself, as well as on fund structuring and documentation)
- banking law advice on structuring the various financing products, loan documentation or syndication options relating to loan funds in the interests of lightening your balance sheet
- due diligence
- end-to-end transaction advice on buying and selling via share deals or asset deals
- capital-market transactions, e.g. securitisations or investments in stock exchange-listed alternative assets
- additional advice on specialist areas as necessary, e.g. employment law, antitrust law or IP
Our clients include infrastructure funds and private equity funds, asset managers, banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds, as well as companies and corporate groups whose activities focus on alternative assets.
Our German Alternative Investments Group comprises lawyers from all the relevant legal fields: financing, regulatory law, M&A, project financing, energy & infrastructure, tax law, capital markets law, real estate law, real estate financing and public law and is part of our global Alternative Investments Group.
Explore our services
Highlight Deals
BNP Paribas and China Merchants Bank
on the financing of five Airbus planes for Lufthansa.
REDAVIA
ENERCON’s sole shareholder AWS
Global Tech 1
American Tower
a global communications infrastructure leader, on its agreed EUR7.7bn acquisition of Telxius Towers from Telefónica S.A. The deal comprises approximately 31,000 existing communications sites in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina.
Cerberus
on the takeover of HSH Nordbank. As part of the acquisition a portfolio of the bank’s non-performing loans, including shipping and real estate portfolios, with a nominal value of several billion euros were sold to independent investors. This deal marks the first successful privatisation of a German state bank.
Viridium Group
on the EUR2.5bn sale of the so-called "Millennium Portfolio" of Generali Lebensversicherung AG to Commerz Real. It has been the largest real estate transaction in Germany for the last 10 years. The Portfolio comprises 26 office, 14 residential and 9 retail properties with a total rental space of more than 352,000 square meters in premium locations of the top 7 cities in Germany: Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart as well as Leipzig and Unterhaching.
IGIS Asset Management and Hana Financial Investment
on the acquisition and the financing of the acquisition of the Trianon skyscraper in Frankfurt from US investor North Star. (Volume: approx. 400-500m)
IONITY
– a joint venture between Daimler, Ford, BMW and the Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche – on the framework agreement to install high power-chargers for electric cars at Eni service stations.
Oak Hill Advisors and Värde Partners
on their acquisition of a USD1bn portfolio of shipping loans from Deutsche Bank.
News and insights

Publications: 12 January 2022
Germany: future trends and challenges for the real estate market 2021/2022
In this video, Allen & Overy Partners Jochen Scheel and Christian Hilmes discuss the key trends they have seen develop in the German real estate market including the building investment pressure, the…

Publications: 12 November 2021
With its ruling passed on 9 November 2021, the German Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht; BVerwG) has put the brakes on the increasingly popular practice among local authorities…

Publications: 05 October 2021
The Berlin preliminary decision: Can housing companies be expropriated?
For some time now, Berlin has been experiencing a shortage of affordable and socially subsidized housing.

Publications: 02 July 2021
Clean hydrogen in Europe: The only way forward is together
Clean hydrogen is a central piece of Europe’s Green Deal goal of reaching climate neutrality.