| Otto Group
Otto Group
Otto Group has undergone a comprehensive digital transformation over recent years, going from a catalogue company to an online-driven e-commerce, financial services and logistic services group now boasting annual turnover of more than €14bn in sales. Martin Mildner, group general counsel and global head of M&A, describes the 50-person Otto Group legal team as ‘one of the leading and most advanced European in-house law departments with a deep and outstanding knowledge on all legal aspects on e-commerce and internet-business as well as related financial services and logistics services’. Transactionally, the team has been extremely successful as well, and Mildner lists a plethora of projects the team has advised on: ‘In 2018, the team was involved in the US$300m minority investment of Heartland in Otto Group subsidiary About You, the sale of Otto Group company Blue Yonder to JDA.com and offering of a corporate hybrid bond worth €300m to the financial market. In 2017, the team participated in the sale of RatePAY to Advent International and Bain Capital, the opening of the ecommerce website otto.de and the acquisition of same-day delivery start-up company Liefery’. Among other strong team performers, Mildner mentions the impressive contributions made by Dr Simon Menke, Britta von Mutius and Dr Steffen Jaeniche. Dr Menke received plaudits for his work on data protection law, von Mutius for her commercial law work and Dr Jaeniche for his work on corporate and finance law.