Mr Claude Niedner > Arendt & Medernach > Luxembourg, Luxembourg > Lawyer Profile

The ‘commercially focused’ team at Arendt & Medernach has ‘an excellent understanding of market practice as well as local regulation and CSSF expectations’, ensuring that it is a very popular choice among fund managers on their structuring and regulatory requirements. Although retail funds (including UCITS) continue to inform a significant proportion of its workflow, the team is also adept at advising across a range of alternative strategies, including as these relate to private debt and private equity. Here, the firm has been at the vanguard of developments in the market, which has seen it very well-placed to generate work from clients on newer structures including “Evergreen Funds”, as well as the continued push towards impact investing. ‘Exceptional’ team head Gilles Dusemon has been pivotal to the firm’s success at driving change in the alternative space and has developed an excellent sense of “what is market”, not only through his fee-earning work but also as a result of his role as co-chairman of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Working Group. The ‘dynamic, intelligent and creative’ Adrian Aldinger is also very well regarded in the alternative space, particularly for the structuring of private equity and debt funds. Florence Stainier has an ‘excellent knowledge of Luxembourg regulation, practice and regulator expectations’ and is one of the driving forces behind the firm’s market-leading UCITS offering. Other key practitioners include Michèle Eisenhuth, who covers a mix of UCITS and alternatives; Isabelle Lebbe, who is an expert at advising on ESG-related matters and on disputes in the sector; Stefan Staedter, the ‘go-to-person for ELTIF matters’; Nicolas Bouveret, who is ‘very knowledgeable on all things private debt’; ‘seasoned veteran’ Francis Kass; and firm co-chair Claude Niedner.

With ‘excellent knowledge of the Luxembourg market’ gleaned over many years’ experience handling work at the very top end of the market, Arendt & Medernach provides a ‘very diligent and effective’ service for “bricks and mortar” mandates as well as corporate and finance work in the space. The ‘outstanding’ Christian Point has a wide-ranging offering which encompasses advice on leases, development of land and corporate real estate, as well as representation of clients in construction disputes. Working closely with its first-rate investment management offering, the team is also very adept at handling work for real estate funds on formation matters as well as their subsequent real estate investments. Claude Niedner is regularly engaged in structuring fund vehicles which invest in real estate assets, while Pierre Beissel, who co-heads the team alongside Point, is noted for his work on structuring and subsequent downstream investments and financing for private equity funds focusing on real estate assets.