Klaus Banke is counsel based in the Frankfurt office.
Mr. Banke’s practice focuses on corporate transactions, notably domestic and cross-border M&A transactions, both public and private. He furthermore advises on corporate governance matters as well as corporate restructurings.
Mr. Banke regularly advises internationally active companies. Most recently he represented EDF in its €4.7 billion sale of a 45% participating interest in EnBW to the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. He also recently advised EDF in connection with an extensive swap of electricity drawing rights and generation capacities between EDF, EnBW and E.ON, in Germany and France, including the sale by EDF of its 18.75% stake in SNET, France’s third largest electricity supplier, to E.ON. Mr. Banke also advised ArcelorMittal in the sale of a stake in DHS-Dillinger Hütte Saarstahl to SHS-Struktur-Holding-Stahl. He was furthermore involved in numerous domestic as well as cross-border transactions over the past years.
Mr. Banke joined the firm in 1998 and became counsel in 2005. He was resident in the New York office from 2000 to 2001. Mr. Banke obtained a J.S.M. degree from Stanford Law School in 1997. He passed the second state examination in the State of Bavaria in 1995 and the first state examination at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1992.
Mr. Banke is a member of the Bars in Frankfurt am Main and New York. His native language is German, and he is fluent in English, French and Italian.