Taylor Wessing nabs finance team from KWM

King & Wood Mallesons has lost two private equity lawyers and three other members of its German banking team to rival firm Taylor Wessing.

The team will join Taylor Wessing's banking and finance practice in Frankfurt by the end of the year.

The team includes partners Sabine Schomaker, Clemens Niedner and Ulf Gosejacob, senior associate Michael Beyer and associate Jacqueline Urbing.

Schomaker currently serves as head of KWM’s German banking and finance practice. She advises German and foreign banks and financial institutions, private equity investors and major corporates on complex national and cross-border financing transactions.

Niedner and Schomaker led a growth strategy at KWM which succeeded in broadening the client base of their finance practice on the banking, private equity and corporate sectors, according to the statement.

“Besides financing issues important to banks, private equity investors and enterprises, the team will also advise on all financing aspects of restructuring law,” said Andreas Meissner, managing partner at Taylor Wessing.

The departure of this team is the latest in a series of losses for KWM this year. In April, a team of Paris-based private equity partners left for Goodwin. As a result, KWM is suing its former co-head of corporate Richard Lever and his new firm, as reported by pfm.