Luxembourg – The partners of global law firm K&L Gates LLP and Luxembourg firm Volckrick & Associates have voted to combine firms, effective July 1st. The combination gives K&L Gates its eighth office across Europe and 46th worldwide and continues a strategic growth trajectory for the firm that recently also has included the opening of a Nashville office with more than 30 lawyers earlier this year and the hiring of more than 80 partners across the firm’s global platform since January 2020.
 
Joining K&L Gates through the combination with Volckrick & Associates are partner Mathieu Volckrick, counsel Jan Boeing, and associate Adam Paschalidis, who together focus their practice largely in the asset management, investment funds, real estate, and private equity areas while also advising on matters in a wide range of other practices, including banking and financial services, corporate/M&A, bank lending and securitization, insurance, and insolvency and restructuring. They assist clients on business and financial law matters both in and outside of Luxembourg, including regularly advising on cross-border transactions throughout Europe and other continents.

“It is a pleasure to welcome Mathieu and his team to K&L Gates as they assist us in launching an office in Luxembourg, a critical center for financial services and other practices,” said K&L Gates’ Global Managing Partner Jim Segerdahl. “Our Luxembourg office is an important link for the firm’s offices and clients throughout Europe, as well as across our global platform. This initiative is another step in the firm’s client-centered growth focusing on key practices, industries, and markets.”   

As a primary point of entry for inbound investment and fund structuring for Continental Europe and U.S. offshore private equity funds and the main center for the formation of private equity and real estate funds globally, Luxembourg offers significant opportunities for K&L Gates’ leading asset management and investment funds and private equity practices and their clients around the world. Additionally, the combination allows the firm to further build its pan-European and global capabilities in a number of other practices in which the firms share synergies, at the same time allowing Volckrick and his Luxembourg colleagues and their clients to benefit from being a part of K&L Gates’ extensive integrated global platform.

Michael Caccese, K&L Gates Chairman and co-leader of the firm’s asset management and investment funds practice area, stated: “The combination opens a very important market for our funds and financial services clients and further expands the global services we deliver to investors and asset managers that operate around the world.” 

Tony Griffiths, K&L Gates’ managing partner for Europe and the Middle East, commented: “When looking for a partner firm in Luxembourg, we needed to find an experienced professional with a reputation for excellence in client service to meet our current clients’ significant requirement for Luxembourg-based funds work and a proven track record in growth and development of a dedicated client base as an engine for further growth in the jurisdiction. Mathieu and his colleagues at Volckrick & Associates fit our requirements perfectly.”

Volckrick has more than a decade and a half of experience in the Luxembourg asset management, banking, and financial services industry and, in addition, has advised on domestic and cross-border real estate and private equity transactions, the financing and refinancing of real estate portfolios, and various areas of banking regulations.

Mathieu Volckrick, founder of Volckrick & Associates and managing partner of K&L Gates Volckrick, stated: “We are delighted to join K&L Gates and look forward to helping grow their capabilities in Luxembourg. With its stellar reputation advising the investment funds and asset management industries, K&L Gates is a perfect match for us. The firm has seen impressive growth in Europe in recent times, offering an ideal platform to advise real estate and private equity clients in Europe and beyond. Our intention is to continue growing the Luxembourg practice with high caliber hires in the coming months, and leverage on the capabilities, reach, and resources of the wider K&L Gates team.” 

With the addition of the Luxembourg office, K&L Gates expands its geographic footprint to 46 offices across five continents, with the firm’s other European offices including London, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Milan, Munich, and Paris.