Gleiss Lutz has advised Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (“SMBC”) on all aspects of German law relating to the expansion of SMBC’s partnership with Jefferies Financial Group (“Jefferies”).
SMBC Group and Jefferies initially entered into a Strategic Alliance in 2021 to collaborate on future corporate and investment banking business opportunities. In 2023, the Alliance was expanded to enhance collaboration across M&A, equity and debt capital markets, with a particular focus on investment grade clients in the U.S. SMBC Group and Jefferies subsequently added Memoranda of Understanding to expand their alliance to the EMEA region, Canada, Asia and Australia, as well as to expand the scope of Joint Coverage initiatives to larger global sponsors, pre-IPO companies, and sub-investment grade corporate clients.
In expanding its relationship, Jefferies and SMBC Group aim to further capitalize on their unique business strengths and enhance their abilities to meet the global needs of their borrowing, investing, corporate and sponsor clients. This will include combining their Japanese equities and ECM businesses, expanding joint coverage of larger sponsors and implementing in EMEA joint origination, underwriting and execution of syndicated leveraged loans for these clients, SMBC agreeing to increase its equity ownership in Jefferies to up to 20% in the open market, SMBC providing Jefferies approximately USD 2.5 billion in new credit facilities to support Jefferies and to facilitate collaboration efforts, including EMEA leveraged lending, U.S. pre-IPO lending and asset-backed securitization, subject to receipt of applicable regulatory approvals.
Gleiss Lutz has advised SMBC on all German law aspects of the partnership, in particular on financial regulatory, corporate, antitrust and employment law matters.
SMBC is the commercial banking subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and one of the largest banks globally on the basis of total assets.
Jefferies is a leading, global, full-service investment banking and capital markets firm. With more than 40 offices around the world.
Simpson Thacher has advised SMBC on US and UK law.
The following Gleiss Lutz team led by Dr. Christian Hissnauer (partner, Financial Regulatory Law, Frankfurt) has advised SMBC:
Tobias Kempf, Daniel Adolph (both Financial Regulatory Law, both Frankfurt), Peter Steffen Carl (partner, Munich), Dr. Johannes Hieronymi (counsel, Frankfurt), Dr. Veronika Weigl (Munich), Dr. Felix Lichtenhagen (all Corporate, Düsseldorf), Dr. Stefan Mayer (partner), Dr. Dominik Monz, Kilian Mossel (all Tax), Dr. Alexander Fritzsche (partner), Dr. Sarah Zinndorf, Dr. Thomas Bernhard (all Competition/Antitrust), Dr. Thomas Winzer (partner), Dr. Tobias Abend (counsel, both Employment, all Frankfurt), Dr. Manuel Klar (counsel, Data Protection, Munich).
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