Practice
Alfred Kossmann is a partner in the Corporate Group of the Düsseldorf office of Shearman & Sterling. He joined the firm in 1991 and became a partner in 1998.

Dr. Kossmann practices general corporate law and specializes in mergers and acquisitions, including restructuring of business groups and joint ventures within or outside an insolvency proceeding. He has extensive experience in structuring cross-border private and public mergers. He also advises in respect of capital market laws. Mr. Kossmann also regularly advises private equity and venture capital funds.

Dr. Kossmann is recommended for M&A transactions by the JUVE 2011/2012, the WiWo publications and the Legal 500 (Germany) 2012/2013.

• Cisneros Group of Companies in its investment in the Mobly-Group (Brazil)
• Corporate advice to management boards and supervisory boards of public and non-public corporations in M&A and compliance matters
• Financial Investors in connection with friendly investments in public companies and other friendly investments
• Coesia S.p.A in the acquisition of Oystar North America, Inc. from Odewald & Company 
• Andlinger & Co. in the sale of the Lapp Group to Quadriga and in the acquisition of the Suspa Group from various financial investors
• Group of financial investors in connection with the sale of brands4friends to eBay
• Inventux Technologies AG in connection with various financings and insolvency matters
• Hypo Real Estate AG in connection with a recapitalization, a public tender for all of its outstanding shares by the Federal Republic of Germany, and insolvency matters
• Hypo Real Estate Holding AG in connection with a public tender offer for up to 24.9% of its shares by a consortium led by J.C. Flowers
• Sanofi-Aventis in the formation and dissolution of a joint venture with CSL Limited
• Tengelmann in the sale of its Czech and Greek Plus stores
• Hypo Real Estate Holding AG in the financing of its acquisition of Depfa Bank plc
• B/E Aerospace, Inc. in its acquisition of Dräger Aerospace GmbH
• Siegwerk Druckfarben AG in various international acquisitions
• Group of financial investors in the acquisition and financing of CellZome GmbH and its cooperation with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
• SafeNet, Inc. in its acquisition of the Eracom Group from Pari Capital
• Celanese in connection with a public tender offer by Blackstone
• Sanofi-Aventis on divestitures (including the divestiture of its U.S. blood plasma business to CSL Limited and CropScience to Bayer AG—at the time, the largest cash transaction ever in Germany)
• ICN Pharmaceuticals in the acquisition/licensing in of various products from Asta Medica
• Behringwerke AG in its divestiture of its vaccine business to Chiron
• Behringwerke Diagnostics GmbH on various license agreements and joint ventures
• Hoechst AG on multiple transactions
• Adva Optical Networking in its stock-for-stock acquisition of Cellware GmbH and Storage Area Networks Limited

• Schriftform des Vorstandsberichts nach Ausnutzung eines genehmigten Kapitals mit Ausschluss des Bezugsrechts (Written form of the management report after the issuance of authorized capital excluding preemptive rights of the shareholders) in NZG 2012, p. 1129 et seq.
• Bewertungspflichten von Vorstand und Aufsichtsrat nach § 27 WpÜG unter Berücksichtigung von IDW ES 8 (Valuation obligations of Management Board and Supervisory Board pursuant to § 27 German Take-Over Act under consideration of IDW ES 8) in NZG 2011, p. 46 et seq.
• Durchführung einer regulären Kapitalerhöhug nach ARUG und zur Finanzierung eines Unternehmenskaufs (Consummation of a regular capital increase following ARUG and to finance an acquisition) in Der Konzern 2010, p. 27 et seq.
• Möglichkeiten der Umwandlung einer bestehenden SE (Possibilities to merge, split or convert an existing SE) in ZIP 2007, p. 164 et seq.
• Ausserbörslicher Paketerwerb und befreiendes Übernahmeangebot nach § 35 III WpÜG (Private package deal and dispensing voluntary public offer pursuant to § 35 III German Take-Over Act), in NZG 2006, p. 481 et seq.
• Vorbereitung und Durchführung von Stock-for-Stock-Akquisitionen (Preparation and consummation of stock-for-stock acquisitions) in AG 2005, p. 9 et seq.
• Die Aktie als Akquisitionswährung (Shares as Currency) in Handbuch Corporate Finance 2002, § 6.2.3
• Ausschluß (“Freeze-out”) von Aktionären gegen Barabfindung (Freeze-out of shareholders against cash) in NZG 1999, p. 1198 et seq.